It is official as of yesterday, November 7, 2017 Maine, the last state in New England who had yet to expand Medicaid, did it! This vote makes Maine the 32nd state to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. This will now benefit all of the low-income adults who qualify for coverage in Maine. This also represents a set back for the Republican party, who continues to try and veto the expansion of Medicaid. This ballot was known as "Question 2". Over $1.5 million dollars was invested into the expansion in Maine. "Some 80,000 adults will qualify under the expansion, according to independent estimates from a Maine legislative fiscal office, adding to the nearly 12 million people in the 31 states and District of Columbia who have already obtained coverage through the program" (Politico-Maine Voters Approve Medicaid). We actually just had a question on our Health Policy exam last week that asked, 'what is the only state in New England who has yet to expand Medicaid?'. The timing is pretty ironic. Until this Policy class, I had no idea all of New England expanded, except for Maine.
It will now remain difficult for Medicaid to expand in many of the other states because they are mostly predominately "red states". This means that Republicans control the governors "mansion or state legislature". However, if people continue to push as they did for Maine, it will eventually become easier to expand Medicaid in those states if that is what people wanted. There are now 18 states that have not expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. All are led by Democrats, except for Virginia and North Carolina, who are led by Republicans. Those might be the more difficult ones to budge.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/07/maine-voters-medicaid-obamacare-244675
Interesting! I had no idea that there were 18 states that had expanded Medicaid. Besides the political opposition, why else do you think was incentivizing them to abstain?
ReplyDeleteThe primary argument against is the financial cost. The governor of Maine has said, "Free is expensive to someone" and he is right. Even though the bill to the states is supposedly only 10% eventually, many states don't have the 10% - because 10% of this bill is going to be significant. A bill payer always has to be found. If the money goes to Medicaid, it has to come from somewhere else - roads, schools, parks, etc., or else it requires new taxes.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in class, I support Medicaid expansion. I think that is a proper role of government.
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