ABC News

By: Shefali Luthra

Last year, nearly 60 percent of Maine residents voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program — an option provided by the Affordable Care Act that would extend health insurance to tens of thousands of the state’s low-income people.

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Rather than being a cash drain, many health policy researchers and economists note, expansion has generally boosted state economies, with higher employment, reduced state spending on health care services for the uninsured and consumer spending elsewhere that would have gone to health care. “The state savings are so significant, they make it much more manageable,” said Adam Searing, an associate professor of practice at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “The issue of how it gets paid for — it’s still an important issue, but it’s not as front and center.”

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