Social Work Workforce Development and Medicaid Expansion: Mapping Areas of (Mis)alignment

Enacted in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) included several provisions to increase health insurance coverage for low- and moderate-income individuals (Mazurenko, Balio, Agarwal, Carroll, &amp; Menachemi, 2018). A key mandate of the ACA required<br />states to expand Medicaid eligibility for adults who lived at or below 138% of the federal poverty level (Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission [MACPAC], 2019). However, a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed states to opt out of Medicaid expansion. To date, 36 states and Washington, DC, have expanded Medicaid eligibility, whereas 14 states have not expanded. Currently, Medicaid serves as the nation&rsquo;s largest source of health coverage, providing care to about one in five Americans (Mazurenko et al., 2018), and recent estimates suggest that over 20 million Americans have gained health insurance access due to Medicaid expansion (MACPAC, 2019).