The Obama administration is not giving up on its goal toexpand Medicaid services inall 50 states. Its latest ploy: Convince the mostly Republicangovernors of those states that expansion will save billions indownstream treatment for substance abusers.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unveiled areport Monday stating that nearly 2 million uninsured people in the20 non-expansion states suffer from mental illness or substance abuse. That’s nearlya third of the uninsured low-income residents of those states. Andthese states’ refusal to expand Medicaid as permittedunder the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) willleave 4 million people uninsured this year.

“While some of these individuals had access to some source ofhealth insurance in 2014, many will gain access to coverage only iftheir states expand Medicaid, and others would gain access to moreaffordable coverage,” the report stated.

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Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.