Dealing with LePage on Medicaid expansion

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - While Gov. LePage continues to oppose [Medicaid] expansion, it’s now state law and must be implemented. Under Maine’s constitution, a voter-approved initiative that requires the state to spend money doesn’t become operable until 45 days after the legislature next convenes (which will happen on January 3, 2018). After that, the LePage Administration has 90 days to submit a state plan amendment to the federal government to implement the expansion.

During this time, lawmakers will need to decide how to fund the expansion. With the federal government paying 95 percent of expansion costs this year, 94 percent next year, and no less than 90 percent in 2020 and the years thereafter, the state’s cost should be modest. (Gov. LePage has vastly overstated Maine’s likely expansion cost.)

All this means that Mainers likely won’t get coverage through the expansion until the second half of 2018.

Across the country, more than 4.5 million uninsured people would gain Medicaid eligibility if the remaining 18 states that haven’t adopted the Medicaid expansion did so. [Maine's] vote should encourage policymakers in these states to do right by their constituents and take another look at expansion during next year’s legislative sessions. It also should boost efforts already underway to pursue similar ballot initiatives in states like Utah, Missouri, and Idaho.