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Expanding Medicaid rolls under the Affordable Care Act may have saved as many as 8,132 people from fatal opioid overdoses, virtually all involving heroin and fentanyl, a study released Friday suggests. The research is the latest evidence that allowing more people to enroll in Medicaid has saved lives and improved health. (Bernstein, 1/10)

“These findings add to the emerging body of evidence that Medicaid expansion under the ACA may be a critical component of state efforts to address the continuing opioid overdose epidemic in the United States,” the study states. The study could provide fodder for Democrats pushing for more states to accept the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. (Sullivan, 1/10)

Study co-lead author Dr. Magdalena Cerdá, director of the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at NYU Langone Health, said the reduction in opioid-related mortality observed in Medicaid-expansion states was likely the result of the Affordable Care Act's inclusion of mental health and substance use disorder treatment services as part of the law's essential health benefits that insurers—including Medicaid—must cover. Cerdá credits the lower mortality rate on increased treatment and access to naloxone. (Johnson, 1/10)

The study helps put to rest claims by some Republican lawmakers, particularly Sen. Ron Johnson (WI), that the Medicaid expansion made the opioid crisis worse by expanding access to painkillers. The new study, echoing others before it, suggests the Medicaid expansion had the opposite effect, and that there wasn’t a link between the expansion and more deaths caused by painkillers, with the possible — and relatively uncommon — exception of methadone used in pain treatment. (Lopez, 1/10)

Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia had expanded their Medicaid coverage as of December 2017, the end of the observed period, according to the study. Since then, four more states – Virginia, Maine, Idaho and Utah – have extended their public health insurance coverage, and Nebraska has adopted, but not yet implemented, an expansion measure, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Newman, 1/10)

If you’ve got something to say about Gov. Brian Kemp’s Medicaid waiver proposal, the federal government is listening. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it received Kemp’s proposal to partially expand Medicaid in Georgia, and it now must accept public comments for 30 days. Comment closes Feb. 7. (Hart, 1/10)

Wondering when North Carolina will actually shift its massive Medicaid program, which provides health care for more than 2 million North Carolinians to managed care? So is everyone else, including the people whose day-to-day jobs are running Medicaid. “We have not set a date and honestly we’re waiting like everyone else to see what the legislature” does this week, said Dave Richard, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary in charge of Medicaid and N.C. Health Choice. “We don’t want to put something out without having certainty around the budget.” (Ovaska, Hoban, 1/13)