+ Regulatory
Nicholas Gueguen | Aug 13, 2017

Changing Medicaid expansion program could affect 11 million in nine states

American Medical Association Wire editor Kevin O'Reilly recently wrote that changing how Medicaid covers Americans could severely harm many Americans.

O'Reilly said that nine states, Maine, Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, Alaska, Nevada, Tennessee and West Virginia, drive that point about how changing how Medicaid expansion covers Americans could severely harm many in a recent article. 

O'Reilly cited the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation when he wrote that over 11.2 million Americans in those nine states are thought to suffer pre-existing conditions that would have disqualified them from medical coverage before the Affordable Care Act became law. 

The Kaiser Family Foundation listed AIDS/HIV, alcohol or drug abuse, cerebral palsy, obesity, an organ transplant, epilepsy, stroke and congestive heart failure as some of the pre-existing conditions that could get a person turned down for health insurance before the Affordable Care Act. 

Proposals to replace the Affordable Care Act could threaten their coverage under Medicaid expansion if their incomes rose, forcing them to pay higher premiums, the article said. 

O'Reilly also wrote that legislation aimed at replacing the Affordable Care Act would place a maximum on federal funds for Medicaid for each state that would be determined by how many of that state's residents use Medicaid. O'Reilly wrote that the amount that the states received would increase in line with the percentage of medical inflation up to 2025. After that, those amounts would go up according to a smaller percentage that is not health care related.

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