President Obama wants the 19 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid to know that it isn’t too late.
A new proposal would ensure the federal government would still cover the first three years of the Medicaid expansion no matter when it is expanded, the White House said in a blog post Thursday.
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Obama will include the “legislative proposal” in his fiscal 2017 budget and will need congressional approval to enact it.
The move comes a few days after Louisiana became the 31st state plus the District of Columbia to expand Medicaid after an executive order from newly elected Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the administration would cover 100 percent of the costs of expansion from 2014 to 2016. After that, the state starts to pick up more of the tab.
Obama’s proposal “to provide any state that takes up the Medicaid option the same three years of full federal support and gradual phase down that those states that expanded in 2014 received, no matter when the state takes up the option,” according to a White House blog post.
“This common-sense proposal makes the expansion as good a deal for states that expand now as it is for the states that have already done so,” the White House added.
It is not clear how the proposal would affect states that expanded Medicaid in 2015, which are Montana, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Alaska.
