Medicaid Expansion Is a Key Part of Affordable Care Act

HealthDay – 3 mins 2 secs ago THURSDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- The Medicaid program is bracing for an expansion that will bring an estimated 16 million more Americans into the health-care safety net, as required by the Affordable Care Act.

But whether that happens depends on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the legal challenges to the massive health-care reform legislation.

Twenty-six states are challenging the requirement to comply with the new Medicaid eligibility rule or lose federal matching funds, calling it coercive and a violation of states' rights. On March 28, they will argue before the Supreme Court that that provision of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

The Medicaid expansion opens eligibility to all people with household incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- whether unemployed or the so-called working poor -- starting in January 2014. That translated into an annual income of approximately $14,850 for an individual and $30,650 for a family of four in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Until now, the main groups of people served by the Medicaid program have been low-income parents and children, the frail elderly and the disabled.

The Medicaid expansion provision is considered more likely to survive the legal challenge than the Affordable Care Act's most controversial provision: the individual mandate, which requires most adults to have health insurance or pay a fine.

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