If there’s one thing that should be beyond argument in the discussion of the PPACA, it’s that the largest part of the law’s impact on insurance coverage to date has been the expansion of Medicaid. Here are some rather unsettling statistics:
The AP says that California expected 800,000 new enrollees after the state’s 2013 Medicaid expansion, but wound up with 2.3 million. Enrollment outstripped estimates in New Mexico by 44%, Oregon by 73%, and Washington state by more than 100%.
This has blown holes in state budgets. Illinois once projected that its Medicaid expansion would cost the state $573 million for 2017 through 2020. Yet 200,000 more people have enrolled than were expected, and the state has increased its estimated cost for covering each. The new price tag? About $2 billion, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Enrollment overruns in Kentucky forced officials to more than double the anticipated cost of the state’s Medicaid expansion for 2017, the AP reports, to $74 million from $33 million. That figure could rise to $363 million a year by 2021.In Rhode Island, where one-quarter of the state’s population is now on Medicaid, the program consumes roughly 30% of all state spending, the Providence Journal reports. To plug this growing hole, Rhode Island has levied a 3.5% tax on insurance policies sold through the state’s ObamaCare exchange.
Even Ohio, whose Republican Gov. John Kasich is running for president on a platform of fiscal responsibility, finds itself in a Medicaid bind. State spending on the program has grown by $5.8 billion since 2011. The Ohio Department of Medicaid projects that by 2017 spending will total $28.2 billion—a 59% increase during Mr. Kasich’s tenure.
Unlike the federal government, most states have strict balanced-budget requirements. As Medicaid costs spiral, lawmakers must cut spending from vital priorities like education and infrastructure, raise taxes or do both.
The real hammer of the PPACA will fall when the federal government stops carrying the full freight for the expansion. I have no idea what will happen but I doubt it will be pretty.
I fail to understand the problem. The Bellman promised he would deliver a Snark, and so, he has. There are ” five unmistakable marks” of “warranted genuine Snarks.” Let us review the first:
Is this is not proof of a genuine Snark? It could be a Boojum, but is this his fault? No, we should trust our Bellman without question, but some things do seem questionable.
That’s why our state, (Ne) didn’t open an exchange. Could project down the road it could not be financed. Our state constitution requires a balanced budget, not out of hard heartedness but hardheadedness concerning reality.
It will make for an interesting test. There is a lot of literature showing that people who have access to health care while growing up have lower crime rates, earn more money and lower rates of incarceration. If states are able to keep people on Medicaid long enough to see these changes, they may be hurt by stopping the programs. And while this can be called hard headed and not hard hearted, it does show that Grayson was actually correct. The Republican plan on health care of poor people is that they should just die. Not because they are mean or don’t care, but because they cannot afford it, just like every other country in the world is unable to afford it.
Steve
“The Republican plan on health care of poor people is that they should just die.”
You diminish yourself with stuff like this, steve. Who can take you seriously?
You diminish yourself with stuff like this, steve. Who can take you seriously?
Nonsense, through and through. The Bellman assembled the crew with great care, and I can assure you he knows what he is doing. In case you have forgotten, here are some of the crew:
If you do not understand, you are uncaring, and you have no feelings. If you have no feelings, you are not able to think logically.
Let me help you out. What the Bellman tells you “three times is true.” Check to see if ear cleanings are included on your policy. Everything else that you might see, hear, or touch is a lie.
In politics it would be called a Kinsey gaffe, but I am not in politics. The reality is that the GOP will approach health care like they do in Texas, which has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country. If you can’t afford to buy health care, you just won’t have it.
Steve
“If you can’t afford to buy health care, you just won’t have it.”
Unfortunately that is the situation of a lot of people who had healthcare before the PPACA changed everything — their policies, doctors, deductibles, medications and services.
Steve, you seem to evaluate the PPACA from only your perspective, discrediting anyone who sees it far differently. Good for you that you have adjusted your practice in integrating all the criteria, mandates etc. But, not all people are “you.”
Furthermore Steve, why is it any less problematic (or anguishing) when someone has lost healthcare they liked and could afford, due to the PPACA, while someone else has gained access, either through subsidies or medicaid expansion? Do we just throw the latter people away, as we tout the others (a diminishing number) who finally get an insurance card and/or maybe mediocre healthcare (as people describe medicaid to be).
meant to say former, rather than latter….
Going back to the original issue, I suspect that if Hilary is elected the Federsl government will continue to subsidize the exchanges a few more years. What the Republicans might do if one of them were elected, I do not know, but I suspect the subsidies will be ended on schedule and we will all spend the next three or four years watching as state after state goes belly up with medical costs — think of it as the Republican way of teaching us all that “Socialized Medicine Is Bad For You.”
In retrospect, I think the people who fashioned Obamacare pictured a much happier recovery from the Great Recession than we’ve actually enjoyed, and the law is going to need some tweaking to accommodate unpleasant economic reality.
Just about everything the administration has turned its attention to has been handled in the same slap-dash way. Something is done that’s poorly structured and highly partisan. Then attention is turned elsewhere and it’s assumed that everything will be skittles and beer.
I think that the Obama Administration had one job—recovery—and it muffed it.
Just about everything the administration has turned its attention to has been handled in the same slap-dash way. Something is done that’s poorly structured and highly partisan. Then attention is turned elsewhere and it’s assumed that everything will be skittles and beer.
A simpler and kinder explanation is that their understanding of how the world works is based upon nonsense. They have the best intentions, but reality is not very forgiving. If this hypothesis is correct, the results should not appear to be connected to the inputs.
It would appear to be nonsensical, but to paraphrase an old saying, “nonsense is in the eye of the thinker.”