
As lawmakers continue debating how to close a $1.5 billion budget gap, there is a particularly valuable and compassionate policy option still on the table: Medicaid expansion. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the federal government will commit to paying 100% of coverage costs for new enrollees under Medicaid expansion, through 2016. This has the combined effect of easing the financial burden of the state, and giving hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians access to health care coverage.