California: State with 5th Most Medicaid Coverage

With the Trump administration unveiling an overhaul of Medicaid, healthcare playing a big role in the 2020 election and coronavirus testing being covered by Medicaid, the personal finance website WalletHub today, March 23, released its report on 2020’s States with the Most & Least Medicaid Coverage.

Some 63,901,512 individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in the 50 states and the District of Columbia that reported enrollment data for December 2019, according to Medicaid.gov.

In order to identify which states rely most and least on Medicaid, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 12 metrics, ranging from total spending per low-income population to adult care quality and children Medicaid eligibility level.

Medicaid Coverage in California (1=Most, 25=Avg.):

14th – Total Spending Per Low-income Population
19th – Adult Care Quality
7th – Total Spending as Share of State Budget
4th – Total Enrollment per Low-income Population

Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid health care program. This health insurance program pays for a variety of medical services for children and adults with limited income and resources. Medi-Cal is a large program made up of many separate programs designed to assist Californians in various family and medical situations.

The program is also an important issue in the upcoming 2020 election, Adam McCann of WalletHub writes.

Democratic hopefuls not only differ from President Trump but also from each other on the matter. For example, Joe Biden’s plan says that he supports the expansion of the program and the ACA as a whole. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, supports “Medicare for all,” which could complicate the status of the program. But it isn’t just in the news due to the upcoming election – as the threat of coronavirus looms, Vice President Pence has confirmed that Medicaid will cover tests for the disease.