Posted on May 6, 2010 10:54
Categories: Legislative and Regulatory Issues | State and Local | Medicaid
Topics: Health Care Reform | Legislation (National) | Medicaid | Regulation | Spending
On April 20, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released an analysis finding that states will spend 1.25 percent more on Medicaid over the first five years of the Medicaid expansion under health care reform than they would have without reform. The analysis also cites a projection by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the federal government will pay for 96 percent of the Medicaid expansion over the next ten years. CBPP projects that the expansion will ultimately reduce state and local costs for services for the uninsured, including mental health services.
Full report:
Health reform’s critics argue that states will bear a significant share of the costs of the new law’s Medicaid expansion, placing an unaffordable financial burden on states. The argument does not withstand scrutiny. In its first five years, the Medicaid expansion will add just 1.25 percent to what states were projected to spend on Medicaid over that period in the absence of health reform, while providing health coverage to 16 million more low-income adults and children. The health reform law requires all states to expand Medicaid to all non-elderly individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line, or about $29,000 for a family of four. The Medicaid expansion and new premium credits for people with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid will, together, reduce the number of uninsured people by 32 million by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Full report: Federal Government Will Pick Up Nearly All Costs of Health Reform's Medicaid Expansion (PDF | 273.38 KB)
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (2010). Federal government will pick up nearly all costs of health reform's Medicaid expansion. Angeles, J. and Broaddus, M.
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