An advocacy group has collected enough signatures to put Medicaid expansion on the November ballot in Utah.
Organizers from the pro-expansion coalition Utah Decides Healthcare obtained 165,000 signatures from registered voters, which is 52,000 more than it needed to win the ballot spot.
If the ballot measure passes, Utah would expand the Medicaid program to cover people making less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level, or roughly $16,000 a year. As a result, more than 150,000 people are expected to be enrolled.
Similar petitions are underway in Idaho and in Nebraska.
Obamacare originally required all states to expand Medicaid to all residents making less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Previously, the program generally covered pregnant women and people with disabilities.
A 2012 Supreme Court ruling made the Medicaid expansion optional for states. The District of Columbia and 31 states opted to expand Medicaid, while the other 19 states did not.
Maine voters recently passed the measure through a similar ballot vote, but Republican Gov. Paul LePage has blocked it from going into effect until lawmakers find a way to pay for the program.
Under Obamacare, the federal government paid for the full cost of Medicaid expansion beginning in 2014 but gradually dwindles its support to 90 percent of the cost by 2020.
Utah’s government has filed a waiver to the Trump administration that would allow the program to expand only to those making 100 percent of the federal poverty level, or roughly $12,140 for an individual. If approved, 60,000 people would enroll in the program.
The state also has applied for a waiver that would make work or training for work an obligation to certain enrollees as a condition of staying in the program.
