More Positive View of ACA in Red States That Expanded Medicaid
<p>Adults who live in Republican-majority states that expanded Medicaid eligibility are more likely to view the Affordable Care Act (ACA) positively, according to new research published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>.</p><p>The authors of the perspective piece, Benjamin D. Sommers, M.D., and Arnold M. Epstein, M.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, looked at four states: Arkansas and Kentucky, which have expanded Medicaid eligibility; Texas, which has not; and Louisiana, which expanded in June 2016. When asked about the effect the ACA has had on their lives, low-income adults in the three expansion states were twice as likely to say they had been helped by the law rather than hurt by it. In nonexpanding Texas, however, a greater share of people surveyed thought the ACA had hurt them.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth Fund–supported study finds that the strongest predictor of positive attitudes toward the law were residing in an expansion state and having Medicaid or ACA marketplace coverage, as opposed to being uninsured.</p>