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July 09, 2010 at 08:00 PM
Expanding Medicaid to cover all legal, low-income U.S. residents might not lead to a huge spike in Medicaid medical claim rates, according to researchers with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Affordable Care Act, the federal legislative package that includes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, is supposed to make Medicaid health coverage available to all legal U.S. adult residents earning less than 133% of the federal poverty level in 2014.
In 2009, an adult would have to be earning less than $14,404 per year to meet that income guideline, researchers in the Kaiser office in Washington write in a report on low-income, uninsured adults.
One concern has been that low-income, uninsured adults who are getting no health care today may have a huge, untapped need for health care services once they have Medicaid.
When the researchers looked at adults included in the federal Medical Expenditure Panel Survey who had incomes under 133% of the federal poverty level and no health coverage for at least 2 years, they found that 38% had received no medical care during the 2-year period.
