State Medicaid Expansion Gains Momentum Despite GOP Opposition

Opposition to expanding Medicaid programs to cover more low-income individuals is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain amid growing public support for adoption across states, policy analysts say.

Ten years after the Affordable Care Act first allowed Medicaid programs to cover nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level—now roughly $15,000 for a single person in most states—all but 10 states have adopted the expansion. An estimated 1.9 million people in the states that haven’t expanded fall into what’s known as the Medicaid coverage gap, having incomes above their state’s eligibility for Medicaid but below the ...