By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State

With the election decided, it is now clear that the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. That’s great news for Pennsylvanians, some of whom have already begun to benefit from the health reform law, and many others who will see more gains as major provisions take effect in 2014.

As Judy Solomon writes at the Off the Charts Blog, a key provision of the law will allow states to expand Medicaid to cover low-income adults earning up to 133% of the poverty line, with the federal government covering most of the costs:

The question now is whether some states will squander this opportunity to cover millions of uninsured Americans.

Coverage for more than 11 million poor, uninsured adults is at risk if states don’t expand Medicaid, according to the Urban Institute.

As you can see in the chart above, Pennsylvania is among the states that have not made a clear decision on the Medicaid expansion. 

Failing to expand Medicaid would squander the opportunity to boost our state economy. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured estimates that the Medicaid expansion in Pennsylvania will amount to at least $17 billion in additional federal dollars invested in the state between 2014 and 2019. By contrast, as Solomon writes, the "Congressional Budget Office estimates that if all states adopt the expansion, they will spend only 2.8 percent more on Medicaid from 2014 to 2022 than they would have spent without health reform."

Failing to expand Medicaid would also cost Pennsylvania real money that would otherwise be saved by reducing what the state spends to provide health care in emergency rooms and health clinics to people without insurance. 

Governor Corbett and the Legislature should take steps to expand Medicaid in 2014. It will help thousands of working parents and other adults in Pennsylvania get the quality health care they need and give the state's economy a real boost.