AARP Nebraska supports fifth attempt to expand Medicaid

Nebraska lawmakers’ repeated refusal to extend Medicaid to uninsured, low-income adults means far fewer state residents have health care coverage compared to their neighbors in Iowa and Colorado.

At a March 8 hearing, AARP representative June Ryan told members of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee that Nebraska’s uninsured rate for the lowest income group is more than twice the rate in those states.

“We now know the consequences of Nebraska’s decision not to participate in expanded Medicaid,” said Ryan, who serves on AARP Nebraska’s Executive Council and testified in support of LB 441 to expand Medicaid. “It is high time for Nebraska to offer Medicaid coverage to our lowest-income residents who lack insurance.”

Nebraskans with incomes below 100 percent of poverty do not qualify for tax credits or cost-sharing reductions to help pay for insurance.  Both Iowa and Colorado opted to expand Medicaid to cover their residents below 138 percent of poverty, the threshold for eligibility.

Ryan stressed that if the state’s decline in the number of uninsured residents from 2009-2015 had mirrored Iowa and Colorado, tens of thousands of additional Nebraskans would have health coverage today.

“If our uninsured rates had dropped as much as Iowa’s in that six-year period, more than 31,000 Nebraskans with incomes below 150 percent of poverty would have gained coverage. If our rates had changed as much as Colorado’s, 54,000 more Nebraskans would have insurance,” she said.

Ryan concluded that Nebraska has the means to cover the state’s share of expanded coverage costs within existing and proposed Medicaid budgets.  “What we lack is the political will to fix the problem,” she said.