{"id":13773,"date":"2017-11-10T19:17:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T19:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/11\/10\/medicaid-expansion-takes-a-bite-out-of-medical-debt\/"},"modified":"2017-11-10T19:17:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T19:17:00","slug":"medicaid-expansion-takes-a-bite-out-of-medical-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/medicaid-expansion-takes-a-bite-out-of-medical-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicaid Expansion Takes A Bite Out Of Medical Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alex Smith<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Medical debts weigh on Geneva Wilson, who keeps a chicken and rooster in a coop behind her cabin in rural southwest Missouri.<\/p>\n

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Alex Smith\/KCUR 89.3<\/p>\n

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Alex Smith\/KCUR 89.3<\/p>\n

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As the administration and Republicans in Congress look to scale back Medicaid, many voters and state lawmakers across the country are moving to make it bigger.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Maine voters approved a ballot measure to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Advocates are looking to follow suit with ballot measures in Utah, Missouri and Idaho in 2018.<\/p>\n

Virginia may also have another go at expansion after the Legislature thwarted Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s attempt to expand Medicaid. Virginia voters elected Democrat Ralph Northam to succeed McAuliffe as governor in January, and Democrats made inroads in the state legislature, too.<\/p>\n

An exit poll of Virginia voters on Election Day found that 39 percent of them ranked health care<\/a> as their No. 1 issue. More than three-quarters of the Virginians in this group voted for Democrats.<\/p>\n

A study<\/a> from the Urban Institute may shed some light on why Medicaid eligibility remains a pressing problem: medical debt. While personal debts related to health care are on the decline overall, they remain far higher in states that didn’t expand Medicaid.<\/p>\n