Joel Ario Speaks to The Philadelphia Inquirer on Voluntary Medicaid Expansion
“Hospitals Delighted by High Court’s Ruling; Other Health Care Sectors Mixed”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
June 29, 2012 – The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Manatt’s Joel Ario, a managing director with Manatt Health Solutions, on whether states will choose to expand Medicaid to include those over the poverty line as part of health reform.
According to the newspaper, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot force states to expand Medicaid by threatening to cut off federal money for existing Medicaid programs. States may choose to participate in the Medicaid expansion.
Ario, who was Pennsylvania’s health commissioner during the Rendell administration, doubted that many states would opt out of the Medicaid expansion. State governments will be pressured by medical providers who don’t want uninsured people showing up in emergency rooms and by employers who don’t want to pay higher premium costs to support people without insurance, he said.
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