With Kentucky actively setting up its health insurance exchange, the final piece of compliance with the Affordable Care Act is a decision on Medicaid expansion. Kentucky is ahead of most of its neighbors in complying with the ACA.
The only major decision left for state officials is whether to expand Medicaid beyond the poverty line, which is optional. The federal government will pay the full costs of an expansion for the first three years, and Governor Steve Beshear has been considering it.
“I’ll need to make that decision sometime in the first four of five months of next year," say Beshear.
After three years, the feds will pay 90% of the Medicaid expansion. Beshear says he’s weighing whether the state can afford that, though some studies have shown expansion can save states money in the long-term.