The Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed into law in 2010, was designed to improve the health of Americans. A key strategy in the law is improving access to health care which, in America, means providing affordable high quality health insurance. Florida Medicaid eligibility is limited to specific populations like pregnant women and children, but the ACA offers the opportunity to expand Medicaid to low-income adults. Florida is one of only 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid, so it should not be surprising that it ranked 47th in the percentage of residents with insurance and 48th in the nation for access to care. This paper presents a summary of just a few of the many studies describing the reasons Florida should expand Medicaid.
