Part of Obamacare involved expanding Medicaid, the health insurance program for low income folks in the U.S. The law required states to offer Medicaid to people living at 125% of the federal poverty limit or lower. States that refused to do this would lose Federal funding for Medicaid (which splits costs about 50/50 federal vs state). In addition, those people added to Medicaid would largely be paid for by the Feds—at about 90%. Then the Supreme Court decided that it was coercive to require states to expand their programs. So now it is optional. And in a nice summary of the situation, this map (from the Advisory Board) shows which states plan to expand and which don’t. In other words, universal health insurance, a standard in most developed countries, is still far from reality in the U.S.
