Panel hears Maine’s Medicaid experience, expansion benefits for Idaho’s poor
A Maine state health official sought to outline for Idaho lawmakers Thursday the fiscal case against Obamacare-based Medicaid expansion, citing his state’s experience with rising health care costs.
Others addressing the Legislature’s working group on health care alternatives for Idaho’s working poor presented data to support the salutary and economic benefits of expanding Medicaid to cover 78,000 uninsured residents.
Maine is one of 19 states that, like Idaho, has declined to expand Medicaid as provided for under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Under Gov. Paul LePage, the state has actually reduced Medicaid programs and LePage has vetoed legislation to expand Medicaid five times.
Both houses of the Maine Legislature again approved expansion plans earlier this year, setting up a possible sixth LePage veto. But an amended proposal never made it to the governor’s desk, dying in the Senate when the 2016 session adjourned.
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