Report: Medicaid expansion would help childless adults

Single adults without children would benefit significantly from the Medicaid expansion in President Obama's healthcare law, according to new research.

The report, written by the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says roughly 82 percent of the people newly eligible for Medicaid do not have a dependent child.

The Affordable Care Act expands Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. It was initially assumed that every state would expand its Medicaid program, but the Supreme Court's healthcare decision made the expansion optional.

If every state participated, about 15 million would get access to Medicaid, according to Friday's report. But several Republican governors have said they won't participate in the expansion.

Majorities of the newly eligible population are white (54 percent) and male (53 percent), according to the report's authors. Roughly half of the newly eligible population is between the ages of 19 and 34.