Stating the obvious

It's been five and a half years since then Governor Tomblin (where are you when we need you?) decided to expand Medicaid coverage for low income working West Virginians under the Affordable Care Act. A recent study by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families found what you might expect: it was a good idea, one that literally changed and saved lives.

As I mentioned in the last post, the recent election not only strengthens the position of those states that have expanded the program--it opens the way for Medicaid expansion in several holdout states. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,

"If all remaining non-expansion states (including Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah) adopted the expansion in 2019, more than 4.5 million uninsured people would gain coverage and uninsurance rates in these states would fall by a quarter, according to Urban Institute projections."

Let's hope we get there.