Top stories of 2013: the Affordable Care Act
(Harrisburg) — From the rocky rollout of the new online insurance marketplace, to Governor Corbett’s refusal to expand Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act made headlines throughout 2013.
As drafted, the federal Affordable Care Act envisioned across-the-board Medicaid expansion to cover adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. But a 2012 ruling from the US Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion optional for states, and Pennsylvania is one of more than 20 states that have declined to make changes.
As a result,an estimated 400,000 Pennsylvaniansearn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to qualify for federal subsidies on the new insurance marketplace.
Kyle Fisher, a staff attorney for the Pennsylvania Health Law Project, says something is wrong with the way the system is operating.
Kyle Fisher
“We’re offering exchange subsidies to families with incomes of $60,000, $90,000, middle class, the upper middle class,” he says. “But to those parents earning under $15,000 or $19,000 a year we’re saying, sorry, we have nothing to offer you.”
Governor Corbett has questioned the sustainability of Medicaid expansion since his February budget address. He says 1 in 6 Pennsylvanians is currently receiving Medicaid benefits, and that would jump to 1 in 4 under an expansion.
In September
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