With Enhanced Funding on the Table, Where Do Medicaid Expansion Holdout States Stand?

The promise of enhanced federal funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) could be the coup de grâce needed for some holdout states to finally expand Medicaid. Oklahoma, for example, will receive more than $500 million in federal dollars over the next two years when its voter-approved expansion takes effect July 1. Bipartisan rumblings in favor of expansion have even reached Texas, where an estimated 1.4 million adults stand to become eligible for Medicaid. Although the state's House of Representatives in April voted down a budget amendment that would have funded Medicaid expansion, a separate expansion bill is still pending. So which states have the most realistic odds of expanding Medicaid? Kansas arguably has the most bipartisan support in its state legislature, while ballot initiatives — which have been successful in other Republican-leaning states in recent years — are underway in Florida, Mississippi and South Dakota. The map below shows Medicaid enrollment and expansion status in all 50 states, with breakdowns of current happenings in key states.

 

 

*Wisconsin partially expanded Medicaid to include all adults under 100% of the federal poverty level in 2014.
SOURCE: DHP, AIS's Directory of Health Plans, state Medicaid documents and local news reporting.