About 78,000 Kansans are among 5.2 million poor, uninsured adults who will fall into the “coverage gap,” created by 26 states choosing not to expand
Medicaid under the federal health reform law next year, according to a study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
These people are projected to have incomes too high to qualify for their state’s existing Medicaid programs, but below the federal poverty level (nearly $11,500 for an individual) required to be eligible for tax subsidies to buy private coverage on the new insurance marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. Medicaid is the state-federal health insurance program for the poor.
“Millions of adults will remain outside the reach of the ACA and continue to have limited, if any, options for health coverage,” the study concludes.
The law provides full federal funding for three years to states that expand Medicaid to cover residents under 138 percent of the poverty level (or just under $15,900 for an individual).
But the Supreme Court made that requirement effectively optional for states, and most Republican led-states have opted against expanding the program.
There is no deadline by which states must opt to expand Medicaid, and a few states are still considering it. In Kansas, about 78,000 adults will fall into the coverage gap, according to the report.
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana also will be especially hard hit, with more than a third of their uninsured adults falling into the coverage gap next year, the study shows.
In Kansas, 29 percent of uninsured adults fall into the coverage gap.
These states will feel the pinch because they have higher rates of poor uninsured adults and their existing Medicaid programs have some of the nation’s the tightest eligibility rules.
In Kansas, adults with children are eligible for Medicaid coverage if they earn less than $7,421 (for a family of three). Childless Kansans are not eligible regardless of income level.
Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature have shown no desire to expand Medicaid and seem unlikely to approve it this year.
Federal officials have said they have little ability to address the coverage gap, given the Supreme Court’s ruling. The only way to fix that would be for Congress to modify the health reform law.