Health care coverage could be expanded to millions of Americans under a new bill in Alabama, which is being cosponsored by Democratic Congressman Shomari C. Figures.
Newsweek has reached out to Figures outside of regular working hours via an online form for comment.
Why It Matters
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 8 percent of Americans did not have health insurance as of early 2024. A 2024 West Health-Gallup poll found that 37 percent of U.S. adults struggle to pay or access treatment or medicine.
Medicare Health Insurance card in file folder.
Getty Images/Bill Oxford
What To Know
The bill, titled Covering Outstanding Vulnerable Expansion-Eligible Residents Now (COVER Now), would provide options for states that have refused the expansion of Medicaid.
The bill would establish a pilot project for Medicaid and allow the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to directly work with counties and cities in order to provide coverage for individuals who would qualify for Medicaid, if their state were to expand access.
The key components of the bill are:
- Seven-year pilot projects to be launched, in order to ensure cost coverage in full for the first three years, which would drop to 90 percent by the seventh year.
- Enrollment streamlined through automatically enrolling individuals, if an expansion of Medicaid statewide were to occur during a pilot project.
- Adopting a successful model for county-based expansion of Medicaid programs in states including California and Illinois.
The bill is endorsed by a number of prominent health organizations including UnidosUS, Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, National Partnership for Women & Families, American Diabetes Association, National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Figures’ sponsorship of the bill comes at a time of potential uncertainty for the future of Medicaid, under the new Trump administration.
President Donald Trump has vowed that he will “love and cherish,” Medicaid, but a White House spokesperson said that the administration is “committed to closely examining Medicaid to improve care for beneficiaries while identifying waste and abuse, as per Politico.
What People Are Saying
Congressman Shomari Figures in a press release: “People across Alabama—both Democrat and Republican—have called for the state to expand Medicaid for over a decade. Because of the state’s refusal to do so, more than 300,000 people are unable to receive quality health care that they would have access to if the state expanded Medicaid. This bill provides an option for the people of Alabama to bypass the state and receive health care coverage.”
What’s Next
The bill will need to be passed by both the House and the Senate and then be signed by the President to become law. Whether or not the bill will pass and subsequently expand health care access to Americans, remains to be seen.
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