States and Medicaid Expansion – IRP Poverty Dispatch

Some GOP politicians drop their resistance to Medicaid expansion, By Dave Helling, February 6, 2013, Kansas City Star: “Cracks continue to develop in the Republican Party’s concrete opposition to Obamacare’s state expansions of Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor. Whether those fissures will crumble Medicaid opposition in Kansas and Missouri, though, remains very much in doubt. On Wednesday, Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan became the sixth GOP governor out of 30 to recommend expanding Medicaid eligibility in their state…”
Medicaid expansion divides GOP governors, By Paul West, February 7, 2013, Los Angeles Times: “Some of the nation’s most prominent Republican governors have moved to embrace a key feature of President Obama’s healthcare law, providing a significant boost to the administration and highlighting a fissure inside the GOP on an emerging campaign issue. At stake is the goal of expanding health insurance under the Medicaid program, one of two main ways the law is to provide coverage to those who lack it. Starting in 2014, the law broadens Medicaid to cover people who earn up to about $15,500 a year, but under last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding the law’s constitutionality, states have the option of rejecting the expansion and the federal money that comes with it…”