New York Times analysis today showed that more than 60 percent of African-Americans live in states that will not expand Medicaid under “Obamacare,” meaning that tens of thousands of low-income Blacks will not benefit from the new health care law.
Twenty-six states, including nearly all of the South, where a disproportionate number of Blacks live, are opting against expanding Medicaid to all of their low-income residents, as the law originally called for. (A Supreme Court decision last year allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid program if they like.) What that means is that the poorest people in these states, particularly low-income childless adults, won’t be eligible for Medicaid under the law and also can’t get the subsidized health insurance that Obamacare offers for people with higher incomes.
This coverage gap will affect more than eight million Americans, including two-thirds of poor Blacks, according to the Times data.
