Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

More Voters Could Get a Say on Obamacare Next Year

Governing: Prior to last month’s elections, no polling had been done on Maine’s first-of-its-kind ballot initiative to expand Medicaid. Considering how controversial the health-care debate in Congress has been all year and the fact that the state elected a Republican governor, health policy experts were expecting a nailbiter.

But to their pleasant surprise, the vote was quickly called in their favor.

Sixty percent of Maine voters chose to expand Medicaid, which is one of the key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. That means more low-income people in Maine should soon be eligible for Medicaid, the government-run health insurance program. (The governor, however, has vowed to implement it only under certain conditions.)

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