Encouraged by the Obama administration’s willingness to permit states to employ a private market-based approach to expanding their Medicaid programs, a number of states that had previously rejected Medicaid expansion are now considering doing so.

Among the states either pursuing such an approach or considering doing so are Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Meanwhile, if Democrats defeat Republicans in gubernatorial elections in Florida, Wisconsin, and Maine, those states are considered likely to seek to expand their Medicaid programs.

Two considerations appear to be fueling this new interest in expansion in states with Republican governors:  first, those states are noticing others receiving billions of dollars in federal Medicaid expansion money; and second, Pennsylvania’s recent success in gaining federal approval of a market-based approach to Medicaid expansion is suggesting to some governors that they can expand their Medicaid programs without doing so in the manner envisioned when the Affordable Care Act was adopted.

Read more about the prospects of additional states expanding their Medicaid programs and the conditions that are causing those that previously rejected adoption to reconsider their positions in this Reuters article.