- States that decline to expand Medicaid give up billions in aid, By Tony Pugh, September 2, 2014, The State: “If the 23 states that have rejected expanding Medicaid under the 2010 health care law continue to do so for the next eight years, they’ll pay $152 billion to extend the program in other states – while receiving nothing in return. This massive exodus of federal tax dollars from 2013 through 2022 would pay 37 percent of the cost to expand Medicaid in the 27 remaining states and Washington, D.C., over that time. Most of the money, nearly $88 billion, would come from taxpayers in just five non-expansion states: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. The findings are part of a McClatchy analysis of data from the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research center that’s advised states on implementing the health care law, the Affordable Care Act…”
- NC’s $10 billion Medicaid challenge: Pay for other states or take federal money?, By Ann Doss Helms and Tony Pugh, September 2, 2014, Charlotte News and Observer: “North Carolina taxpayers could spend more than $10 billion by 2022 to provide medical care for low-income residents of other states while getting nothing in return, a McClatchy Newspapers analysis shows. The federal health law tried to expand Medicaid to millions of low-income, uninsured adults. But many Republican-led states, including North Carolina, opted out of the plan championed by President Barack Obama…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty