More than 74 million Americans, one-fifth of our population, are covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Initiative. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia chose to expand Medicaid coverage under terms of the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
Expansion provided health insurance coverage for more than 10 million Americans who otherwise would have been uninsured. Sixteen states with Republican governors chose to expand their Medicaid programs.
Dr. Clif CleavelandExpansion raised the income limit for Medicaid to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level in states approving the measure. In 2016, this equated to $27,821 for a family of three. States that chose to expand Medicaid reduced levels of uninsured residents to single digits: 8 percent in New York, 5 percent in Massachusetts. Among states whose legislatures blocked expansion, levels of uninsured residents ranged from 12 percent in Alabama, 13 percent in Tennessee, 16 percent in Georgia and 18 percent in Texas.
For 2016, the federal contribution to Medicaid exceeded $344 billion, making the program the third-largest domestic program in the federal budget behind Social Security and Medicare.
Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in July 1965. The federal government provided the majority of funding for each state’s Medicaid program, but states were given leeway in administering Medicaid and designing benefits for those insured. A state could obtain a waiver from the federal government for innovative programs.