Health officials on Friday issued a final rule guaranteeing 100 percent funding for new Medicaid beneficiaries as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Health reform authorizes states to expand Medicaid to adult Americans under age 65 with income of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level — about $15,000 for a single adult in 2012 — and provides unprecedented federal funding for these states.
Under the new regulations, the federal government will pay all of the cost of certain newly eligible adult Medicaid beneficiaries through 2016, phasing down to a permanent 90 percent matching rate by 2020. It will remain there permanently.
The rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will take effect in January of next year.
