From The Washington Post (6/30/20):Oklahomans voted Tuesday to alter their state constitution to expand Medicaid over nearly a decade of opposition by Republican governors, making their state the first to widen the safety-net insurance program as the coronavirus pandemic steals jobs and health benefits.
The expansion’s approval, by a slender margin, means that an estimated 250,000 additional Oklahoma residents will be eligible for the public insurance, including nearly 50,000 who have lost coverage as unemployment has soared this year.And from The Raleigh News & Observer (7/2/2020), news that the governor of North Carolina has signed a bill to create a private Medicaid managed care option sometime between now and July 2021. The devil's in the details, and Medicaid managed care is notoriously difficult to implement, but the move is being hailed as a first step toward Medicaid expansion.
Meanwhile Texas -- with the highest rate of uninsured persons in the country -- continues to freeze out 1 million people who would be covered if the state were to join 38 other states (including deep red Oklahoma) and expand eligibility requirements (with generous federal matching funds) pursuant to the Affordable Care Act. (Texas Tribune, 2/27/20).
