ACA Choices for South Carolina, 2016

[karynnj]

7. South Carolina rejected the Medicaid expansion

The ACA legislation as written covered a large group of people by expanding the income range where you could get Medicaid - where the cost would be minimal. The Supreme Court in its first decision said the federal government did not have the right to force the states to do this. Needless to say, many Republican states didn't - even though that hurts their own citizens.

What it does is create a weird situation where people below the original Medicaid threshold, get Medicaid -- people above the expanded Medicaid limit, qualify for subsidies, while the people in between (like your daughter) get nothing.

This is worth advocating for on a state level -- more and more republican states are doing the expansion. The problem is that it is complicated and many people don't realize that it is their own state that is standing in their way and that they could be on Medicaid if the state would simply request it.

Here, blame Judge Roberts (even though he could have shifted to declaring all of the ACA unconstitutional) or blame the Republican state governors and legislators. You can find lots of information by googling Medicaid expansion South Carolina - here's a good one - https://www.healthinsurance.org/south-carolina-medicaid/