Expand Medicaid now

Editor's note: The following is an opinion article written by Brewton physician Dr. Marsha Raulerson.

Three hundred thousand adults in Alabama are without access to health care except thru emergency rooms - which is expensive, inadequate, and costly to hospitals due to uncompensated care.

Thirty-eight states have now expanded Medicaid to adults, with 90% of the funding by the Federal Government and 10 percent by states. No state has reversed its decision to do so. Ten years of research now shows reductions in those states in annual mortality, improved access to preventative care, increase in smoking cessation, reduction in uncompensated care costs, reduction of families in poverty, lower rates of maternal deaths, decrease in rural hospitals closures, gains in employment and growth in the labor market.

Two years ago, more than 100 people in Escambia County came together at D. W. McMillan Memorial Hospital to meet with our state legislators: Sen. Greg Albritton and Rep. Alan Baker. We presented the overwhelming need for Alabama to expand Medicaid to adults. Medicaid funding will increase access to needed care for our community, support our rural hospitals, and provide adequate payment for the physicians who serve our neighbors.

Albritton and Baker both said: "We hear you-it needs to be done. But we don't have the money."

Now we do Have the money! The American Rescue Plan Act, signed by the president on March 11,2021, will increase funding to Alabama by between $740 to $940 million over the next two years as an incentive to expand Medicaid.

There are over a million lives covered by Medicaid now: children, nursing home patients, pregnant women, and the disabled. Our match rate for federal funds has been increased to almost 79 percent through September, 2022. If we expand Medicaid, it will increase again to almost 84 percent. The savings to the state budget is more than enough to cover the 10 percent match required to add low-income adults.

Almost 70 percent of Alabamians now support Medicaid expansion. We are waiting impatiently on our elected leaders. Senator Albritton, Chair Senate Finance Committee-where are you?