The striking difference between states that expanded Medicaid and the ones that didn't – Washington Post

The number of Americans without health insurance declined to 9.1 percent last year, according to federal data released Tuesday. A set of maps released by the Census Bureau suggests an obvious way to decrease the uninsured rate even more: expand Medicaid in the 19 states that haven’t. The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, originally called for an expansion of Medicaid eligibility to people who make up to 138 percent of the poverty level. The Supreme Court ruled that mandating the expansion was unconstitutional, allowing states to opt out. That has left a “coverage gap” in 19 states, where poor people are not eligible for Medicaid, but also do not qualify for the subsidies for private health insurance through the Obamacare marketplaces. Here’s how the map showing how Medicaid expansion looks today: In the new Census analysis, the researchers compared states that had expanded Medicaid as of Jan. 1, 2015 to those that hadn’t, and …
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