6 states, DC extending Medicaid pay raise next year to primary care doctors

Just six states and the District of Columbia will use their own money in 2015 to sustain the federal Medicaid pay raise to primary care doctors, which was a key provision of the Affordable Care Act intended to make sure millions of low-income people enrolling in the expanding insurance program have access to a physician. Interestingly, two of the states extending the pay raise are Alabama and Mississippi — neither of which expanded Medicaid under the health law. The other states extending the pay raise next year are Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa and Maryland, according to interviews with state officials and the American Medical Association.