The new state Medicaid expansion will help people with low incomes who live in rural areas and for-profit businesses to get health care coverage through the state’s health insurance marketplace.
The Missouri Health Plan, which is run by the Missouri Department of Insurance, said Tuesday that it expects the expansion will expand coverage for more than 9.8 million people in the state.
The expansion will cover about 13.7 million Missouri residents.
That number includes 1.3 million people who receive coverage through Medicaid or CHIP, which covers the poor.
Medicaid is a federal-state program that provides Medicaid coverage for the poor and elderly.
Under the expanded Medicaid program, the government pays for the cost of providing health care services and for a share of those costs, up to a certain level.
The federal government pays half of the cost, up from the current amount of 30 percent, and states must set aside money to cover uninsured people who can’t afford to pay.
The health insurance marketplaces that operate in 20 states and the District of Columbia are set to open Jan. 1.
The expansion will likely help people in those states get insurance.
But not everyone who gets health care through the new health insurance exchanges is eligible for the expansion.
The program does not cover people who are homeless or in foster care, or people with mental illness.
“It’s going to be quite a few more states that are going to have some form of the expanded health insurance pool,” said Scott Krasnow, senior director of health and health policy at the Urban Institute.
Krasnow said the expansion has the potential to save more than $400 million in 2020 alone.
The program was set up as a way to help the poor, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has made health insurance available to a wider range of Americans.