The Wait is Over: HHS Clarifies Terms of the Medicaid Expansion, Approves Six State Exchanges

This afternoon, Secretary Sebelius sent a letter to governors along with a list of answers to 39 Frequently Asked Questions related to the Medicaid expansion, exchanges and market reforms.  As Joan Alker has posted before, we’ve been waiting patiently for the Medicaid expansion terms.   As we learn more, our bloggers will have more to say on Say Ahh!, but in the meantime, we wanted pass along two important pieces of news:

 

  • States must take the full ACA-intended Medicaid expansion to 133% of the federal poverty level to receive the enhanced match (100% 2014-2016 and decreasing each year to 90% in 2020).  If a state chooses to take on a partial expansion to 100%, they may only do so through a waiver with their current match rate. 
  • Six states received conditional approval to run their own exchanges: Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington.

You can read more here and stay tuned to Say Ahhh!

Elisabeth Wright Burak is a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families.

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