In the midst of the partisan firestorm around Medicaid expansion, a new report released by the Urban Institute shows that at least eight states are prepared for it.

The report authors interviewed a number of health care stakeholders in Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Most of the interviewees believed that their programs are ready for an influx of Medicaid patients.

"A lot of these states have been doing managed care for a long time so they have a strong infrastructure already and it puts them in a good position to take on more enrollees," Terri Coughlin, Urban Institute senior fellow, told DOTmed News.
Researchers also found that some, but not all, publicly offered plans will also be available in the private health insurance exchanges.

"Some Medicaid plans only have a license and only serve Medicaid so for them to shift up and become a commercially licensed plan is a whole new world for them and will be a challenging endeavor," said Coughlin.

Stakeholders also expressed concerns around state IT systems' ability to handle Medicaid expansion, which requires building a new system for the exchange that can seamlessly communicate with the antiquated Medicaid IT systems.

Ideally, the two systems would be able to speak to each other and facilitate information exchange for patients who are not eligible for the exchange but may be eligible for Medicaid.

Adding to the complication is the fact that these systems also need to be tied to a new federal government system holding citizenship and social security information.

"To make all these speak to each other in real time is a challenge - all the states that we spoke with indicated that they're working hard on it in a short time frame," said Coughlin.

Healthcare Act