If Kentucky expands Medicaid, no other state would have a larger percentage drop in the uninsured, Kaiser Commission says.
“Kentucky will benefit most from the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured,” Lorie Hailey writes for The Lane Report, a Lexington-based business publication.
The law calls for expanding Medicaid to people who earn less than 133 percent of the poverty threshold, or 138 percent if a fudge factor is included. If Kentucky accepted the expansion, its number of uninsured adults under the 133 percent line would decrease 57.1 percent, more than any other state, the commission says.
From 2014 to 2019, the commission reports that the federal government’s spending on Medicaid in Kentucky will be $11.8 billion, while the state will spend $515 million,” Hailey reports. From 2014 to 2016, the federal government would pay the entire cost of the expansion; after that, the state would have to pay 10 percent. The normal Medicaid funding formula is 30 percent state, 70 percent federal.
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