Gov. Wolf touts benefits of Medicaid expansion during visit to St. Luke’s Friday afternoon
St. Luke's added thousands of employees in the past year by acquiring
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Wolf talked about how his decision to expand Medicaid increased patient volumes and revenue for St. Luke's and other hospitals, and reduced the number of uninsured residents to one of the lowest numbers in the country. The expansion added more than 700,000 residents to the program and helped reduce the state's uninsured rate to under 6 percent, according to the governor's office.
St. Luke's CEO
"We saved jobs. We created jobs. And more importantly we helped the people." he said.
Health experts say government programs that provide public and private insurance such as the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid enable people to better manage chronic illnesses, which cuts down on expensive treatments at emergency rooms.
However, hospitals across the state have complained that declining reimbursements from government payers such as Medicaid and Medicare have hurt them financially. Smaller hospitals like Sacred Heart,
At St. Luke's, Wolf argued that Medicaid expansion enabled Sacred Heart and other struggling smaller hospitals to remain open.
"We've been able to keep hospitals that are and were on the financial edge open because now they're getting reimbursed for treatments that they weren't getting reimbursed for before," he said.
Through Medicaid expansion, Sacred Heart increased its number of insured patients, saving the hospitals millions in uncompensated care, said state Rep.
Medicaid, a health insurance program for poor families and the disabled, has become the country's largest insurance program, helping 1 in 5 people.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government encouraged states to expand Medicaid to cover people with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty line, or
Medicaid is one of the largest expenses in the state budget, amounting to
Wolf, campaigning for re-election, has been pushing back against state Republican legislators' efforts to add a work requirement for those enrolled in Medicaid. Last year, he vetoed a work requirement bill, arguing that it would hurt a vulnerable population.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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