Excerpt
HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour): Medicaid is a crucial piece of the health reform law and its goal of providing new coverage to 30 million Americans.
Roughly 13 million of them are expected to receive coverage by expanding eligibility to the program, which provides health care to the poor. But the calculus changed after the Supreme Court decided states could opt out, even though the federal government would pick up 100 percent of the new costs for the first three years.
So far, 23 states, mostly led by Democratic governors and the District of Columbia, have said they plan to expand eligibility starting next year. Eighteen others with Republican governors are opposed. Those states could be passing on billions of dollars. Now some Republican governors who have been opposed to the health care law are pushing to expand Medicaid. That includes Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Arizona, where Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill to do so today.
We look at what's behind these changes in two of these states.
Mary K. Reinhart is with The Arizona Republic. And Karen Kasler is with Ohio Public Radio.
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