Lost opportunity

What Oklahoma is missing by refusing Medicaid expansion

Three years ago, a central provision of the Affordable Care Act kicked in – the option for states to expand their Medicaid programs for the low-income uninsured via a substantial infusion of federal funds. While 31 states and Washington D.C. have expanded coverage to date, Oklahoma is one of 19 states still taking a “wait and see approach.”

The time for wait and see is over. A new report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has surveyed dozens of studies and found that expanding coverage yields significant coverage gains, grows access to care and use of health services, and improves state economies.

The report finds that the gap in uninsured rates between expansion and non-expansion states is widening, effectively creating two-tiered access to health care depending on state politics. As a result, Oklahoma’s non-elderly uninsured rate is second only to Texas and tied with Georgia – both states that have refused to expand coverage.

Carly Putnam is a policy analyst with Oklahoma Policy Institute. For the rest of this article and more, visit okpolicy.org.