Foundation for Government Accountability: Medicaid Expansion Could Push More Than Two Million Individuals Off Existing Insurance Plans

NAPLES, Florida, Dec. 4 -- The Foundation for Government Accountability issued the following news:

The vast majority of able-bodied adults who would become eligible for Medicaid under ObamaCare expansion already have private health insurance, and millions would lose their current plans to be shifted onto Medicaid, according to new research from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA).

In states that have not expanded Medicaid, individuals with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) qualify for federal premium tax credits. However, once a state decides to expand Medicaid, many of these individuals lose access to those tax credits, and are shifted off their private health plans and onto Medicaid.

The new paper tracks the decreasing exchange enrollment and increasing Medicaid enrollment in states that recently expanded Medicaid. In Montana, for example, where Medicaid was expanded in 2016, there was a 72 percent drop in exchange enrollment among enrollees earning less than 150 percent FPL. Louisiana experienced a drop of more than 80 percent. In both states, thousands of able-bodied adults were forced out of the exchange and onto Medicaid after expansion.

"There are more than two million individuals who are in danger of losing their existing insurance to Medicaid expansion," said Jonathan Ingram, paper author and vice president of policy and research at FGA. "If additional states expand Medicaid, taxpayers will be forced to spend billions of dollars to provide Medicaid to able-bodied adults who already have private insurance, robbing resources from the truly needy and other core budget priorities."

Read the full report here (https://thefga.org/research/medicaid-expansion-private-insurance/).

* * *

The Foundation for Government Accountability is a non-profit, multi-state think tank that specializes in health care, welfare, and work reform. To learn more, visit TheFGA.org.