Medicaid expansion News

Percent of Indiana Residents Without Health Insurance Declines

A U.S. Census Bureau report has found that Indiana had 373,000 fewer people without health insurance last year than three years earlier. The report released last week said about 8 percent of Indiana residents, or about 530,000 people, lacked medical …

Republican Governors Have Own Ideas for Healthcare Reforms

A group of about a dozen Republican governors is pushing for its own set of national healthcare reforms, flexing its considerable muscle in the national debate over the future of Obamacare as the U.S. Senate begins writing its bill. Led …

Illinois to Congress: Don’t Be ‘Hasty’ with Health Law Repeal

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration has sent a letter to GOP congressional leaders asking them to avoid “hasty” or “incomplete” action as they proceed with a planned repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The Jan. 17 letter says Congress and …

Citing Flint Water, Detroit-Area Sinkhole, Snyder Calls for Addressing Infrastructure

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Jan. 17 called for addressing Michigan’s aging infrastructure over the next several decades, citing the Flint water crisis that has roiled his administration and a football field-sized sinkhole that formed recently in suburban Detroit. In …

Extreme Divide Marks Approach to Healthcare in Arkansas, Texas

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is highly unpopular in both Texas and Arkansas, but the sharply different approaches the states have taken is evident in the availability and cost of health care — in the span of a few …

U.S. Approves Modified Arkansas’ ‘Private Option’ Medicaid Expansion

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says federal officials have approved a number of changes the state wants to make in a Medicaid expansion program known as “Arkansas Works.” The governor said that the Department of Health and Human Services will authorize …

Arkansas Senate Votes to Continue ‘Private Option’ for Healthcare Insurance

The Arkansas Senate voted to continue the state’s compromise Medicaid expansion another year and create a task force to look at alternatives for the hundreds of thousands of people receiving coverage through the first-in-the-nation initiative. By a 29-2 vote, the …

N.C. Commissioner Goodwin Seeking Apology Over Health Official’s Remark

North Carolina’s Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin is publicly calling for an apology from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services Secretary over a remark in which the health official allegedly held Commissioner Goodwin responsible for the state’s rejection of …

Southern States Still Opposed to Obamacare

As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation’s poorest and unhealthiest states. “Not in South Carolina,” Gov. Nikki Haley declared at …

Administration Issues Final Rule on Minimum Benefits Under Obamacare

The Obama administration on Wednesday issued its long-awaited final rule on what states and insurers must do to provide the essential health benefits required in the individual and small-group market beginning in 2014 under the healthcare reform law. A cornerstone …