Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map | KFF (2024)

FAQs

How many states have passed Medicaid expansion? ›

To date, 41 states (including DC) have adopted the Medicaid expansion and 10 states have not adopted the expansion. Current status for each state is based on KFF tracking and analysis of state expansion activity.

Improved health outcomes.

Medicaid expansion is associated with improvements in overall self-reported health among adults with low incomes. Among people with chronic disease, it is associated with improved access to care, better health outcomes and disease management, and decreased mortality.

Conservatives view Medicaid as “just another welfare program,” this time hiding in health care clothes. Their view is that welfare programs, including Medicaid, have caused more harm than good by promoting dependency and using taxpayer dollars unwisely.

Under the expanded eligibility guidelines, Medicaid is available in North Carolina to a single adult with annual income up to about $20,782 in 2024 (this is 138% of the federal poverty level), and to adults in a family of three with a household income up to about $35,631/year.

The top five best states in terms of Medicaid quality was completed by California, Massachusetts and Oregon. At the other end of the scale South Dakota received the lowest overall score and was also ranked third-worst for access to coverage, for which neighbouring North Dakota finished bottom.

Pharmaceutical fraud and abuse has been one particular area of concern with the growth of Medicaid. Medicaid expansion would have harmful health care effects in addition to the deleterious fiscal effects. Expansion would lead to greater health care access challenges for existing enrollees.

Expanding Medicaid helps low-income families' health and financial well-being, especially those in which someone has lost a job. In states that expanded Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), unemployed workers experienced large gains in coverage.

Studies that examine the fiscal impact of Medicaid expansion on specific states or the effects across all states find consistent results: expansion leads to significant budget savings and significant revenue increases (even without imposing additional taxes).

Stakeholders include senior Medicaid and agency leadership, the Governor's office, the provider community, the patient and advocacy community, the State legislature, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Texas leads the country in rural hospital closures. Balat insists that expanding Medicaid won't improve Texas' health care access gap. “Coverage isn't care,” he said, referring to the fact that in Texas, as in many states, Medicaid patients often have trouble finding doctors who will accept the public insurance.

Do states regret expanding Medicaid? ›

The strong balance of objective evidence indicates that actual costs to states so far from expanding Medicaid are negligible or minor, and that states across the political spectrum do not regret their decisions to expand Medicaid.

A majority of the Court also found the ACA's Medicaid expansion unconstitutionally coercive of states, while a different majority of the Court held that this issue was fully remedied by limiting the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary's enforcement authority.

The Medically Needy Asset Limit is $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. 2) Asset Spend Down – Persons who have assets over Medicaid's asset limit can still become asset-eligible by reducing countable assets.

Starting Dec. 1, 2023, NC Medicaid covers people ages 19 through 64 years with higher incomes. Many North Carolinians who did not qualify for health coverage through NC Medicaid prior to Dec. 1, 2023 may now qualify.

Also in 2014, states were given the option of expanding Medicaid eligibility to people with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. By the end of 2014, twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia had expanded access to their Medicaid programs, while twenty-two states had not.

The state with the highest income limits for both a family of three and individuals is Washington, D.C. If you live in this area, a family of three can qualify for Medicaid if their income is at 221% of the FPL. For other adults, the limit is set at 251% of the FPL.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) opposes Medicaid expansion because “federal Medicaid dollars will decline over time, leaving state taxpayers responsible to pay for a large unfunded entitlement.”

Rather than adopt a full Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, Georgia instead secured a Medicaid waiver to provide coverage to a subset of adults with low incomes: those who are not eligible for traditional Medicaid, who have incomes below the federal poverty level ($15,060 in annual income for an ...