Obama era Medicaid expansion keeps gaining ground

WASHINGTON (AP) — The President is still trying to overturn “Obamacare,” officially known as the Affordable Care Act, but his predecessor’s health care law keeps gaining ground in places where it was once unwelcome.

Missouri voters this week approved Medicaid expansion by a 53% to 47% margin, making the conservative state the seventh to do so under the current Presidential administration. The Republican President readily carried Missouri in 2016, but the Medicaid vote came as more people have been losing health insurance in a shaky coronavirus economy.

Missouri’s vote now leaves only a dozen states opposed to using the federal-state health program for covering more low-income adults, mainly people working jobs that don’t provide health care.

Oklahoma voters approved a Medicaid expansion earlier this year.