As part of President Barack Obama’s health insurance overhaul, the USA was offering to pay for program’s expansion to cover adults with higher incomes. Where available, it also provides the estimated and revised cost of paying for the program during the 2017 fiscal year, when states will begin paying a share of the Medicaid expansion. They say that in turn will reduce the costs that businesses and those with insurance pay to care for the uninsured given that New Hampshire hospitals provided more than $425 million in such uncompensated care in 2013.
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went for the expansion back in 2013, though he made clear he did not like the underlying policy.
New Hampshire received a federal waiver to structure its expansion differently than most other states.
“Let me be clear, I am no fan of the Affordable Care Act”.
It’s expected that Medicaid will take up an increasingly larger percentage of the state budget moving forward. But 600,000 have signed up more than 15 months after the Medicaid expansion launched. In May, the number of newly eligible people in the program was almost 383,000.
The actual enrollment for fiscal year 2015 ended up being about 220,442, with an estimated cost of about $54 million in fiscal year 2017.
As Christie rolled out his state budget proposal earlier this year, his treasurer praised the expansion, saying it’s been “a blessing for providing appropriate care to our most vulnerable populations”.
With BC-US-Medicaid Expansion-State Budgets.
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California officials say the decision to expand has allowed the federal government to inject billions into the state’s economy, and they say the state is prepared to handle additional costs through long-term budgeting and better coordination with other social programs. Minnesota calls its Medicaid program Medical Assistance.
