Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has a message for his fellow governors: Expand Medicaid under Obamacare. If you don’t, you’ll be losing out.
To prove his point, Beshear released an independent report Thursday concluding that the state is saving money in the long run and improving citizens’ health overall by expanding the program to those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, as called for under the Affordable Care Act.
Governors have been divided over expanding their programs. Some Republicans have joined Beshear and other Democrats to opt in, but 22 of the states have declined. Those who oppose the expansion say it’s too expensive for states.
But Beshear said his report buries that objection “under an avalanche of facts.”
“We have answered the questions: Number one, will it work — it’s working in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “And number two, can we afford it — yes we can.”
The report, conducted by Deloitte Consulting and the University of Louisville’s Urban Studies Institute, estimates that Medicaid expansion will add 40,000 jobs and $30 billion to Kentucky’s economy through 2021, along with saving nearly $820 million in state and local government budgets.
Beshear, who embraced Medicaid expansion from the get-go and whose state has created one of the country’s most successful insurance exchanges, said he too shared some concerns about expanding Medicaid.
That’s why he commissioned the report in 2013, as the state was preparing to expand its health insurance program for those with low income using federal dollars provided by the healthcare law. It’s the first independent report on how Medicaid expansion is affecting a state.
State Medicaid programs vary in who they will cover, but most limit coverage to those who are both low-income and also have a disability, are pregnant or have some other qualifying condition. But under the 2010 healthcare law — and if states choose — the program may encompass anyone earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
The federal government will cover all the costs for the newly eligible for the first few years and eventually scale that back to 90 percent.
Many Republicans have resisted embracing any component of the unpopular healthcare law. And those who have chosen to expand Medicaid — most recently Indiana Gov. Mike Pence — could face political retribution for accepting any part of the law that is so loathed among Republicans.
But Beshear argued that those who cite costs as their reason for not expanding Medicaid are ignoring the facts.
“People can have whatever opinion they want, but they aren’t entitled to their own facts,” he said. “It’s one thing just not to like [Medicaid expansion] because the president has his name on it, and if that’s the reason they want to take healthcare away from 500,000 Kentuckians, then that’s their opinion and people oughta know that.”
