States and Medicaid Expansion

Posted on November 30, 2012 by townsend

• State could see savings with expanded Medicaid, By Martha Stoddard, November 28, 2012, Omaha World-Herald: “Expanding Medicaid to cover all low-income Nebraskans could produce savings — not just costs — for the state, according to a national expert. Joy Johnson Wilson, health policy director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Tuesday that states should take a closer look at the potential impact of the expansion that was authorized by the federal health care overhaul law. Early studies of the impact looked primarily at the cost of adding people to state Medicaid rolls, Wilson said…”
• Report: Medicaid expansion would bring state more than $30 billion, By Misty Williams, November 30, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Expanding Georgia’s massive Medicaid health care program would cost the state roughly $2.5 billion over a decade, while providing half a million poor, uninsured Georgians with coverage, a new study estimates. Under a Medicaid expansion — a pillar of the Affordable Care Act — the federal government would pay 100 percent of the costs for newly eligible enrollees the first few years, though that would later fall to 90 percent. The result: more than $33 billion in new federal money would flood into Georgia over a 10-year period, according to the study released Monday by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation…”
• Study: Michigan may pay $1.7B for Medicaid, but could get $16B in fed funds, By Karen Bouffard, November 28, 2012, Detroit News: “The optional Medicaid expansion available to states under the federal Affordable Care Act would cost Michigan about $1.7 billion more for the program over 10 years, but would draw down roughly $16 billion in additional federal Medicaid funding, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The report by the nonpartisan group showed modest state costs for implementing the Medicaid expansion compared to significant increases in federal funds while millions of low-income uninsured Americans would gain health coverage…”
• Nixon favors expanding Medicaid program, By Elizabeth Crisp, November 29, 2012, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Gov. Jay Nixon wants to expand Missouri’s Medicaid program to provide health care coverage to some 220,000 uninsured adults in the state. ‘As governor I have both the opportunity and obligation to keep Missouri moving forward,’ he told reporters in a conference call this morning. ‘It is the smart thing to do and it is the right thing to do.’ Nixon said he will put the expansion — which will be fully funded by the federal government for the first three years under the Affordable Care Act — in the state budget proposal he submits to lawmakers, but the move puts him at odds with Republican legislative leaders, who have said that the state can’t afford the long-term costs of expanding the program…”