With Medicaid under the gun, new study highlights program’s successes in Cheshire County
New research points to a reason why. A study out of
And rural counties in states that opted to accept a federal Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act have seen large drops in the uninsured rates for adults, the study found.
Low-income children were not included in the federal Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, having long been automatic recipients of Medicaid funds under the
But the rate of uninsured children throughout
Since 2015,
Since the initial expansion, about 52,000 Granite Staters have received insurance through the program, according to the
Among the Granite State's less populated counties, the changes are starker.
In
Children have benefited more: In 2008 and 2009, 1,320
Meanwhile,
The study, a nationwide review of data from the
For
Brooks, who co-founded the
"I think we've known for a very long time that ... there tends to be lower-income people living in rural areas and perhaps a lack of the types of jobs that would come with good employer-based coverage," she said in an interview.
Brooks said the study provides evidence that
And she said that
One hospital official at Cheshire Medical has taken the task to heart. Family resource counselor
"She'll meet them at their house; she'll meet them at the school, or the Wendy's, or some place that works for that parent," he said. "She'll proactively help them figure out what's the best choice for them in terms of whether it would be Medicaid, Medicaid expansion, or something in the (insurance) marketplace."
To LaFrance, who was executive director at the
But the program could be in dire straits. A bill drafted by a committee of
However,
And a budget that passed the
For
In an interview with the Union Leader published
A spokesman for Minuteman confirmed Thursday that the company's plans have not changed.
Moore, a former communications director at the
A work requirement, Moore said in an interview Thursday, would drive more people into paying jobs and off Medicaid entirely, reducing the federal government's financial liability and tamping down some of the rate hikes.
But the rate hikes are a direct result of expanding Medicaid in the first place, Moore argued.
"A lot of the problems we're seeing take place right now were knowable and foreseeable (when Medicaid was expanded) -- the breakdown was entirely predictable," he said.
Political actors on the other side of the spectrum see it differently.
"In several
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