Ohio Doctor: Medicaid Expansion 'Lifeblood of Serving the Underserved'

A small town nestled in the northwest corner of Ohio has benefitted greatly from the Medical expansion that came via the 2010 Affordable Care Act, a doctor there told MSNBC.

During an interview with NBC's Rehema Ellis, Dr. Warren Morris spoke about Medicaid and what it's done to the community in Bryan, Ohio.

"We have some grant work that allows us to treat the uninsured but it's quite limited and very narrow in its focus," Morris said. "We were actually able to reach a wide swath of the community with Medicaid expansion."

The doctor was asked what life could have been like if House Republicans' version of federal healthcare — the American Health Care Act — had made it through the House last week and, eventually, signed into law by President Donald Trump.

"The big concern that we had was it would affect the Medicaid expansion, which is the lifeblood of serving the underserved," Morris told the network. "There were so many changes in the plan. I don't know which one was finally going to be offered, but I was glad to see that delayed."

Medicaid is a program that offers health insurance premium subsidies to low-income Americans. Ohio and several other states expanded their program under Obamacare to include households with an income that is below 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Under the American Health Care Act, federal funding for Medicaid would have been limited. That would have left more of the program's cost to the states, which led to some Republican governors — including Ohio's John Kasich — lobbying against the bill that was ultimately never brought to a House vote.

The National Council for Behavioral Health, meanwhile, said last week the AHCA would have been detrimental to "Americans' mental health and addiction coverage and care."

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