An important element of the ObamaCare Act could be included in at least four states in 2022 – including the state of Florida – which would be one-third of the non-enlargement states.
Mississippi, South Dakota and Wyoming are also facing constitutional amendments by the state on the vote to expand Medicaid, the joint federal low-income health care program. In recent years, Medicaid’s voting initiatives have gained the smallest margins after state lawmakers rejected the idea as too expensive.
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If these four states expand Medicaid, it will expand their budgets over the next ten years by a total of $ 163.3 billion – $ 128 billion from Florida alone – according to an analysis by the fiscal watchdog group Foundation for Government Accountability, which announced last week was made. It will also add another 2.4 million adults to the Medicaid roles and increase hospital costs by $ 760 million in those countries, the report said. The FGA analysis adds that 85,810 individuals – 71,662 from Florida – are already on Medicaid waiting lists in these states.
“We are looking at the expansion of Medicaid roles during a waiting list crisis when tens of thousands of people with chronic conditions and severe disabilities died while waiting for Medicaid coverage,” said Hayden Dublois, research analyst at the Foundation for Government Accountability and a employee. author of the report, told Fox News.
Since 2014, following the initial implementation of the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare, most state lawmakers have taken the additional federal dollars and expanded Medicaid to 138 percent of federal poverty, or $ 30,000 for a household. Previously, the federal program was only available for 100 percent of the level of poverty.
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After many states blew past projected enrollments and cost estimates, and hospitals were poorly equipped to provide care, state legislators drafted the breaks and rejected the expansion. Enter the step to have voters do it directly.
“The impact is that elected officials who have access to information and are aware of the fringe benefits weighed against the fiscal costs do not make the decision,” Dublois said.
In Florida, 8% of voters in the previous election had to sign a petition for a proposed constitutional amendment to qualify for the ballot, which would reportedly be 891,589 signatures.
Expansion advocate Florida decision Healthcare claims that adding 800,000 Floridians to Medicaid would be an economic blessing and actually a cost saver.
“Increased demand for health care will create thousands of new jobs in Florida, and the new money spent in our state will boost our economy, which will benefit Florida businesses and residents,” Florida Decides said. Healthcare website.
The group’s website adds: “Instead of focusing on preventive care that saves lives and money, we are taking the bill to people who are unable to pay once their medical condition has become life-threatening and more difficult to treat. .Care care in our emergency rooms is passed on to taxpayers through state and local government programs and to consumers through higher insurance premiums. ‘
Florida Decides Healthcare did not respond to inquiries from Fox News for this story.
The FGA analysis projects 1.9 million new enrollments in Florida and estimates that the medicaid deficit in the hospital will amount to $ 727.9 million.
Of the states, Mississippi would see the next biggest impact, with 13,510 on the state’s waiting list. The expansion, according to the FGA report, would add another 358,000 at an estimated cost over the next decade of $ 28 billion.
South Dakota will see an increase of 68,000 on Medicaid, with an estimated ten-year cost of $ 4.1 billion, according to the FGA report which predicts that Wyoming will see the Medicaid enrollment balloon with 42,000 covering the next decade $ 2.7 billion cos.
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The group, Dakotans for Health, which distributes a petition, says Medicaid expansion, “will provide health care to those who need it but cannot afford it, including many parents, the elderly and hard-working people who have less than $ 17,000 earned per year. “
‘It will also bring home more than $ 300 million of our tax money from Washington, DC each year, which will make it possible to provide health insurance to the uninsured, protect our rural hospitals, boost our economy and provide thousands of new create jobs, “adds the South Dakota group.
The Fairness Project, a group that has helped the ballot work in other red states, monitors the potential state policy for 2022.
“Medicaid expansion is popular across the political spectrum. That’s why voters in deep red states like Oklahoma and Missouri are still past it,” Jonathan Schleifer, executive director of The Fairness Project, said in a statement. “Medicaid expansion provides health care to hard-working Americans, gives billions of dollars back to states to create jobs and boost the local economy, and saves money regularly by reducing other health care costs. This is a common sense approach to health care. expand where everyone wins. ‘
According to the FGA report, recent successful voting initiatives in the red states to expand Medicaid were noted after the disputed election, in which activists cast their ballots in the most densely populated regions.
These close victories and a lack of consensus across the country are an even bigger reason why Dublois says voting initiatives are slashing the legislative process.
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In 2020, voters in 107 of the 116 Missouri counties and major cities rejected the expansion of Medicaid, but gained the upper hand because more than one-third of all votes in the state favor expansion from the St.
Similarly, Medicaid’s expansion in Oklahoma won by less than 1% last year, despite losing in 70 of the 77 counties in the state. Of the seven provinces that voted for enlargement, a majority did so with less than 2,000 votes.
In 2018, voters in 84 of Nebraska’s 93 counties opposed expansion, but the expansion still won small.