States and Medicaid Expansion

Posted on July 23, 2012 by townsend

• Working poor stand at center of Medicaid debate, By Juan Carlos Llorca (AP), July 23, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Jose Gallegos’ company eliminated employee health insurance to save money, so when his gut started hurting and his skin took on a yellow tinge, he resisted seeing a doctor. When he finally went to the emergency room, physicians diagnosed stomach cancer. Gallegos made too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy his own insurance, so he scraped together what he could, and his wife, Andrea, took on three jobs. Just over a year later, at 41, he died, leaving behind four children. Two years later, it was Andrea’s turn. A crack and sharp pain in her back drove her to the emergency room, where she learned she had breast cancer. It had snapped one of her vertebra. Now 45, she said the cancer remains in several other vertebrae, but at the moment it’s not spreading. Families like the Gallegos stand at the center of a debate over President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, which could have expanded Medicaid coverage to 1.3 million uninsured Texans. But Republican Gov. Rick Perry has said he will not widen the program because it would cost too much…”
• Alabama weighs costs, benefits of medicaid expansion under Affordable Care Act, By Kim Chandler, July 22, 2012, Birmingham News: “Alabama could make deep reductions in the number of people who go each day without health insurance if state officials choose to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Alabama ranks 14th in the country for the number of people who likely would be added to the Medicaid rolls if the program were expanded, according to estimates from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Alabama also is one of five states where more than 60 percent of the state’s uninsured population could become eligible for Medicaid if the expansion were implemented, according to the Urban Institute. But those gains in insurance — while mostly paid for by the federal government — wouldn’t be entirely free to the state. The federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost of services for new enrollees for the first three years, but that eventually would drop to 90 percent…”