Jerry Knirk: Re-authorization of Medicaid expansion

The most important bill currently in the Legislature is SB 313, which re-authorizes New Hampshire’s Medicaid expansion.

Medicaid expansion came about as part of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA included expansion of Medicaid to include nearly all low-income individuals with incomes up to 138 percent of poverty ($28,180 for a family of three in 2017) with the individual exchange covering those above. It was intended to be nation-wide, but a 2012 Supreme Court ruling made Medicaid expansion optional for each state. Initially, the federal government paid 100 percent of the Medicaid expansion with that percentage dropping to 90 percent by 2020, requiring some state funding. In states that did not expand Medicaid, there is a coverage gap between traditional Medicaid and the exchange, leaving many uninsured.