The Obama administration is not giving up on its goal to expand Medicaid services in all 50 states. Its latest ploy: Convince the mostly Republican governors of those states that expansion will save billions in downstream treatment for substance abusers.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a report Monday stating that nearly 2 million uninsured people in the 20 non-expansion states suffer from mental illness or substance abuse. That’s nearly a third of the uninsured low-income residents of those states. And these states’ refusal to expand Medicaid as permitted under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will leave 4 million people uninsured this year.
“While some of these individuals had access to some source of health insurance in 2014, many will gain access to coverage only if their states expand Medicaid, and others would gain access to more affordable 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.
