Medicaid 'doughnut hole' leaves many working poor without healthcare subsidies

When Medicare was expanded in 2006 to include prescription drugs, the issue of the "doughnut hole" arose — a gap in coverage that could cost patients thousands of dollars before coverage resumed. The Affordable Care Act will make that disappear in 2020. But the legislation, also called Obamacare, will create another unintended gap in health insurance for residents of Texas and other states that did not expand Medicaid. Residents in this new "doughnut hole" make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to qualify for subsidies on insurance bought through the state's federally run Health Insurance Marketplace, more commonly called the exchange.