Lawsuit Challenging Alaska's Medicaid Expansion Must Prove Irreparable Harm

Now that lawmakers in Alaska have voted to sue to try to block that state's expansion of Medicaid to 40,000 low-income adults, they will have to show irreparable harm will result if a preliminary injunction isn't granted against the expansion, APRN-Anchorage's Annie Feidt reports.

Legislators are arguing that the expansion needs to have their approval, that the population that would be covered by the expansion is not a mandatory group that must get health insurance coverage, and Gov. Bill Walker violated separation of powers by unilaterally authorizing the expansion.

The Associated Press' Becky Bohrer reports that the expansion would be for "people ages 19 to 64 who are not caring for dependent children, not disabled and not pregnant, and who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level."