REPORT: Health Reform’s Medicaid Expansion Will Benefit Millions of Women

An estimated 7 million women will be added to the Medicaid rolls and receive health coverage when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes full effect in 2014, a report from the National Women’s Law Center found. 

The ACA allows states to expand Medicaid coverage to individuals earning up to 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. 

More than 900,000 direct-care workers lived in households earning less than 133 percent of FPL, PHI data shows (pdf). 

Nationally, 90 percent of direct-care workers are female.

When President Obama signed the ACA in 2010, the law required states to expand Medicaid. A subsequent Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, however, stripped that requirement from the law; states now can reject Medicaid expansion if they so choose.

— by Matthew Ozga