Kansas lawmakers are currently considering legislation that could expand Medicaid to 150,000 nonelderly, low-income Kansans. As lawmakers debate Medicaid expansion in the state’s legislature, Families USA has published a fact sheet on the impact of Medicaid Expansion on Kansas’s state budget. Click here to view the fact sheet.

Broad bipartisan majorities in the Maryland Senate and House, by margins of 46-0 and 119-12, have approved legislation to establish a simple and seamless system for obtaining health coverage. Under the bill, an uninsured Marylander can start the enrollment process by simply checking a box on their state income tax return. That single step will let the state’s health care exchange determine eligibility for free or low-cost health insurance, based on information in the tax return. Those who qualify for Medicaid will be enrolled automatically.

Due to changes made through recent federal rules issued by the Trump administration, small businesses and self-employed business owners can buy health plans through associations that are exempt from many state and federal regulations. These new rules leave consumers without important protections. For example, Association Health Plans (AHPs) don’t have to cover all of the benefits that other plans sold to individual and small businesses must cover.

Both before and especially after President Trump and his congressional allies ended federal enforcement of the ACA’s individual mandate, several states established their own enforcement systems. Maryland’s lawmakers are proposing an innovative “down payment plan” that uses a more enrollment-oriented approach to requiring people with affordable access to health coverage to obtain insurance. Instead of imposing tax penalties on the uninsured, the Maryland proposal helps the uninsured enroll into coverage whenever possible.