WASHINGTON _ Obamacare's Medicaid expansion could become a major election issue again this year _ at least in four states where supporters want to enact or continue the policy through ballot initiatives in the 2018 midterm elections.
Organizers in Montana and Nebraska are collecting thousands of signatures to get the issue on the November ballot, while supporters in Utah and Idaho are awaiting final word from state officials who must validate and tally their petition signatures.
Expanding coverage under Medicaid, the national health plan for low-income and disabled Americans, was a key component of the Affordable Care Act. The 2010 law originally required state Medicaid programs to extend coverage to all non-elderly people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty limit beginning in 2014. States that didn't comply would lose their federal Medicaid funding.
