Recent attention to a court decision against a waiver granted to Kentucky to make work requirements part of its Medicaid program should spur congressional action on Obamacare to give states greater flexibility to help those in need.
Since January, Republicans in Congress have been working on efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare using the budget reconciliation vehicle. As a last-ditch effort to utilize this legislative vehicle before it expires on Sept. 30, Congress looks likely to vote next week on the Graham-Cassidy health bill that partially repeals and replaces parts of Obamacare.
It’s not just the political Left that’s pressuring states to adopt the costly Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Hospitals and clinics, too, are leaning on state lawmakers to expand the rolls. Indeed, there have even been recent studies in some states purporting to show that adopting the Medicaid expansion would be a fiscal positive for the state's budget, supposedly because it would increase state tax revenues and allow cuts to other state health spending.
During 2016, individual-market enrollment decreased by 583,000 individuals and employer-group coverage decreased by 4,000 individuals for a net decrease in private-market coverage of 587,000 persons.