I'm a couple of weeks behind on this (the full #AmRescuePlan, #HR1319, already passed the House late last Friday night), but Medicaid expansion is one of the core issues I cover here, so it didn't feel right not to give this a write-up.
Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, only certain populations were eligible for Medicaid. Low-income children, pregnant women, parents of minor children and those with certain disabilities and so forth were eligible up to a certain household income threshold ranging from as a ceiling of as little as 13% of the Federal Poverty Line (parents in Alabama) to as much as 375% FPL (pregnant women and newborn infants in, interestingly, Iowa).
In other words, only about 10% (at most) of those still in the Medicaid Gap could remotely match the GOP's cliche of a "lazy, good-for-nothing layabout" type who's able-bodied, has no serious extenuating circumstances and so forth. The "get off your ass and work!" requirements appear to be nearly as big a waste of time and resources as the infamous "drug testing for welfare recipients" bandwagon which a bunch of states jumped on board over the past few years.
Back in November I noted that enrollment in Medicaid via ACA expansion has increased dramatically here in Michigan since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, increasing by 23% from 673,000 in February 2020 to 829,000 in November.
Today the Michigan Dept. of Insurance & Financial Services just issued the following press release:
More than 1 Million Michiganders Obtained 2021 Health Coverage from the Health Insurance Marketplace and the Healthy Michigan Plan
(LANSING, MICH) After an extensive joint outreach campaign by the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), more than 1 million Michiganders obtained health coverage for 2021 during the Health Insurance Marketplace open enrollment period or through the state’s expanded Medicaid program.
Back on December 19th, my colleagues Colin Baillio and Andrew Sprung picked up on something I had posted in response to the semi-final 2021 Open Enrollment snapshot report:
STATE LEVEL:
--25 out of 36 states outperformed last year
--Best % increase y/y: TEXAS (+14.9%)
--Worst $ decrease y/y: KENTUCKY (-6.7%)
I have no idea if there's anything special in either state which caused either to do as well/poorly as they did relative to last year.
From the state totals one obvious pattern leaps out: enrollment is up 9.7% in states that have not enacted the ACA Medicaid expansion -- and down 0.5% in states that have expanded the expansion (including Nebraska, which opened the Medicaid expansion doors in October of this year).
From the state totals one obvious pattern leaps out: enrollment is up 9.7% in states that have not enacted the ACA Medicaid expansion -- and down 0.5% in states that have expanded the expansion (including Nebraska, which opened the Medicaid expansion doors in October of this year).
I suppose this was inevitable, but it's grating nonetheless, and especially so given that we're in the middle of a pandemic which has caused tens of millions of Americans to lose their jobs:
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider a Trump administration plan to let states impose work requirements on some who receive health-care benefits under the Medicaid program for the poor.
Arkansas and New Hampshire want to continue programs halted by lower courts, and more than a dozen other states say they want to impose similar requirements.
But despite the Supreme Court’s willingness to take up the issue, the incoming Biden administration might have other ideas, and opponents called on it to reverse endorsement of the work requirements.
Over at Xpostfactoid, my colleague Andrew Sprung has been doing a great job of tracking ACA Medicaid expansion enrollment growth since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic this past February/March at the macro (national) level, by looking at around a dozen states which have monthly reports available. He puts the overall enrollment growth rate at 23.6% from February thorugh October 2020.
Over at Xpostfactoid, my colleague Andrew Sprung has been doing a great job of tracking ACA Medicaid expansion enrollment growth since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic this past February/March at the macro (national) level, by looking at around a dozen states which have monthly reports available. He puts the overall enrollment growth rate at 23.6% from February thorugh October 2020.
I've decided to take a closer look at individual states. The graph below shows how many Arizonans have been actively enrolled their Medicaid expansion program (awkward named the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS):
Over at Xpostfactoid, my colleague Andrew Sprung has been doing a great job of tracking ACA Medicaid expansion enrollment growth since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic this past February/March at the macro (national) level, by looking at around a dozen states which have monthly reports available. He puts the overall enrollment growth rate at 23.6% from February thorugh October 2020.
Instead of replicating his work, I decided to take a closer look at individual states. The graph below shows how many Alaskans have been actively enrolled in our Medicaid expansion program (Healthy Michigan) every month since it was launched in September 2015:
Over at Xpostfactoid, my colleague Andrew Sprung has been doing a great job of tracking ACA Medicaid expansion enrollment growth since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic this past February/March at the macro (national) level, by looking at around a dozen states which have monthly reports available. He puts the overall enrollment growth rate at 23.6% from February thorugh October 2020.
Instead of replicating his work, I decided to take a closer look at individual states, starting with my own: Michigan. The graph below shows how many Michiganders have been actively enrolled in our Medicaid expansion program (Healthy Michigan) every month since it was launched in April 2014 (we had a 3-month delay in the program due to the state legislature refusing to implement the new law with immediate effect; I have no idea why):
Five weeks ago, right after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, I once again wrote about the different options available to Democrats to save the ACA from a potentially disastrous SCOTUS ruling next spring...each of which would require them holding a trifecta in the House, the Senate and of course the Presidency:
1. Pass a simple bill changing the federal mandate penalty to an amount higher than $0.00.
2. Pass a simple bill clarifying that the mandate is separate from the rest of the ACA.
3. Pass a simple bill striking out the underlying mandate language itself.
As I understand it, two of these would also require the newly-Dem controlled Senate to also kill the filibuster (or to somehow convince enough Republicans to agree to hit the 60-vote threshold), while the third (raising the penalty back over $0.00) could be done with just 50 votes (+ VP Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker) via the reconciliation process...which itself gets messy.
I've written several times about how Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado has repeatedly shown sickening levels of chutzpah and gaslighting when it comes to the Affordable Care Act:
In a pathetic attempt to gaslight Colorado voters, Gardner is now trying to paint himself as supporting healthcare expansion, going so far as to try to claim credit for passage and approval of last year's Section 1332 Reinsurance Waiver program which dramatically reduced premiums for unsubsidized individual market enrollees throughout Colorado...even though a) he didn't have a damned thing to do with it and b) the reinsurance program was only able to be developed thanks to the Affordable Care Act...which Gardner has repeatedly voted to repeal.
On Tuesday, August 4, all Missourians will have the chance to vote Yes On 2 to bring more than a billion of our tax dollars home from Washington every year – money that’s now going to places like California and New York instead.
By bringing our tax dollars home, we can protect thousands of frontline healthcare jobs, help keep rural hospitals open, and deliver healthcare to Missourians who earn less than $18,000 a year. That includes thousands of veterans and their families, those nearing retirement, working women who don’t have access to preventive care, and other hardworking Missourians whose jobs don’t provide health insurance.
Back in 2018, I was all over the trend of deep red states putting ACA Medicaid expansion on the ballot after getting fed up with years of their elected leaders refusing to do so. Idaho, Utah and Nebraska voters all did exactly that, passing it by solid margins. Unfortunately, state Republicans got in the way (or at least tried to) in all three states, adding hurdles, barriers and caveats which have either delayed or partly weakened them.
In Red State Oklahoma, Medicaid Expansion Nears 2020 Ballot
A campaign in Oklahoma to expand Medicaid via the ballot box far eclipsed the necessary number of signatures needed to put the measure before voters next November 2020, supporters said Thursday.
The submission of 313,000 signatures to put a constitutional amendment on next year’s general election ballot shattered the required 178,000 needed by the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office, organizers said. Media reports in Oklahoma said supporters of Medicaid expansion broke a state record when it comes to signatures needed for a statewide ballot initiative.
