Health Affairs November 1, 2018
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states must have an option whether or not to expand Medicaid as authorized in the Affordable Care Act, expansion has been a long, slow slog, state by state, inch by inch. While blue states had mostly lined up to expand Medicaid by 2013, nearly every purple and red state proved to be a battlefield. Today, 19 states have yet to expand, with 31 in the “yes” column (plus the District of Columbia) (see table 1). The last state to expand, #31, was Louisiana in mid-2016. But, might a mighty Medicaid wave be coming courtesy of the November 6thelections? The answer is a definite maybe.
Right now, all that’s certain...