https://mailchi.mp/cfd0577540a3/the-weekly-gist-november-11-2022?e=d1e747d2d8

While the final balance of the House and Senate are still unknown after Tuesday’s midterm elections, both chambers are expected to be narrowly divided. 

Ballot initiatives on reproductive health produced more unambiguous results, with three states—California, Michigan, and Vermont—amending their constitutions to affirm reproductive rights, and two states—Kentucky and Montana—voting down proposals that would have imposed greater legal barriers to abortion access. South Dakota became the seventh, and likely final, state to expand Medicaid via ballot initiative, making an additional 28K South Dakotans eligible for coverage, and reducing the number of states that have yet to expand Medicaid to 11.

The Gist: Democrats beat expectations, bucking historical trends in which midterm voters swing strongly against the President’s party. But healthcare did not feature prominently in voters’ choices, with this being the first election in over a decade where the state of the Affordable Care Act and protecting individuals’ access to care and coverage was not a significant choice driver. 

The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade had a clear impact on voter turnout, with abortion tying inflation for voters’ top concern in exit polls. At the state level, South Dakota voters approved Medicaid expansion, where over 40 percent of the state’s uninsured adults could now gain access to coverage—another clear sign that voters, regardless of party affiliation, are behind the ACA’s expanded vision for the safety net program. 

Moving forward, a closely divided Congress is unlikely to take on significant healthcare legislation, regardless of who ultimately holds the House and Senate.