Medicaid Expansion: Who Wins? Who Loses?
Calculations by the Heritage Foundation via the Urban Institute:
- 40 of 50 states are projected to see increases in costs due to the Medicaid expansion.
- The majority of states see costs exceed savings when the federal match rate is lowered after the first three years. From there, state costs continue to climb, dwarfing any projected savings.
- State savings are concentrated in large states. New York is estimated to see $33 billion in savings, while Massachusetts is estimated to save $6 billion over 10 years.
Many estimates the predicted cost savings for the states assumed that the costs of uncompensated care will decrease but states that have expanded Medicaid did not witness such declines.
I am skeptical of any projections at the moment regarding such a massive plan that hasn’t gone into full effect yet. That said, Massachusetts was the first state to implement something similar to the ACA, and if it is going to experience savings, may be, there is some merits to the system, once it is established.
If the net savings is 10 billion dollars, isn’t that an argument for the legislation?
It’s a shame that society and the government overlook the damage that this situation may cause just because of the little good it “may” do. Perhaps some states will indeed benefit from it and see and improvement in their savings. However, as the article said, that’s the exception not the rule, which makes this program a major fail for the majority of states. It doesn’t really make a difference how good it does in a few places if it does twice as bad in the majority of states…balance it out and perhaps you will find a rational explanation behind this program.
I agree with Desai in terms of issues with early projections. However, the prospect of these studies is not comforting. I don’t see how prices are not going to continue to go up.
What are the chances that people will end up moving to those few states where Medicaid is expanding efficiently? I wonder if this could affect the demographic distribution across the nation.
The article projects both savings and “losses.” I don’t see how this projection based on assumptions says much of anything.
Whenever I read about all the GOP governors who took the money because they could get “a return on investment of more than 10-to-1”, I was worried. For a state to win in a cost-sharing game, there must be a state that loses. All of these governors thought they were foolish to not take the money. Now, they will see that they were only robbing themselves.
It’s no longer robbing Peter to pay Paul, it’s robbing Peter to pay Peter – after we skim al bit off the top.
I love this graphic! New York has really benefitted from this!
Well…what do we have here…more thrilling news about the INCREASING costs of the ACA! Directly or indirectly, this reform is eliminating all of our possibilities of ever having reduced health care costs. Cheers to that.
In the long run everyone loses…for those states who are benefiting from this program right now, they are only going to see an eventual rise in costs and decrease in quality…nothing good is coming out of this.
Medicaid Expansion: Who Wins? Who Loses?
We’re all losers due to Medicaid expansion.