Three Senate Democrats are trying to do an end run around the 12 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid.
Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin introduced the Medicaid Saves Lives Act on Tuesday to establish a Medicaid-like coverage plan run by the federal government to cover people who would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid under the Obamacare expansion of the program but live in a nonexpansion state. The federal government would fully fund the plan. States would not have to provide matching funds.
“Our state government’s refusal to expand Medicaid has sentenced countless Georgians to needless suffering and contributed to the closure of nine Georgia hospitals in the last decade,” said Ossoff.
MEDICAID ENROLLMENT HIT RECORD DURING PANDEMIC WITH 10M NEW SIGN-UPS
In addition to Georgia, the other states that have not expanded Medicaid are Alabama, Florida, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In Missouri, voters have approved an expansion, but the Legislature has yet to implement it.
Under Obamacare, states were initially required to expand their Medicaid programs to cover people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, with the federal government funding 90% of the expansion and states paying the other 10%. A Supreme Court case made the expansion voluntary. People above 138% of the poverty line are eligible for subsidies on the Obamacare exchanges.
People who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to be eligible for exchange subsidies fall into what is called a coverage gap. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that about 2.2 million people are in that gap.
President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act that Congress passed in March included $22.5 billion over two years to states that had not yet expanded Medicaid. If a state expanded Medicaid, it would receive a bump in Medicaid funds from the federal government.
Only Wyoming made any moves toward taking advantage of the new funding. The Wyoming House of Representatives passed a measure to expand Medicaid, but it died in the state Senate.
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Warnock, Ossoff, and Baldwin are hoping to include their legislation in the Democrats’ budget reconciliation measure. That measure would not require Republican support in the Senate to pass.
