Expand Medicaid, $1 state cost, $9 federal subsidy

Expand Medicaid, $1 state cost, $9 federal subsidy Hyper-partisan analysis reports that under President Obama's health care law, every dollar states spend on low-income...

Expanding Medicaid: $1 states spend, $9 federal subsidies A non-partisan analysis reports that under President Obama’s health care law, for every dollar states spend providing health insurance to low-income residents, they will receive more than nine dollars in federal funding. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute jointly reported that expanding Medicaid to increase the number of low-income people receiving this insurance benefit by about 20 million will cost the United States more than a trillion dollars from 2013 to 2022, but states will only have to bear $76 billion of it, accounting for about 7% of the total, and the remaining $952 billion will be paid by the federal government. The Obama health care law hopes to include the 50 million uninsured Americans in health insurance, including expanding the Medicaid program to include more low-income people, and establishing a health insurance exchange to help the middle class purchase subsidized private insurance. Both plans will take effect in 2014 and will require most Americans to have health insurance or face fines. Republican-controlled Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana and some other states have resisted expanding Medicaid. The analysis, which uses computer models of population, income and insurance coverage, is unlikely to change the positions of state leaders, but it could influence the ongoing debate in states that are mostly waiting on the sidelines. Expanding Medicaid is primarily aimed at low-income adults without children at home who currently cannot receive Medicaid benefits in most states. The federal government will cover all of their costs for the first three years, gradually scaling back to 90 percent thereafter. The analysis also found that: ● States that refuse to expand Medicaid will still see this cost increase significantly because the new law will encourage people who are currently eligible but have not registered to join the program. ●States will save $18 billion by no longer having to provide charity care to uninsured low-income people. ●New York, Massachusetts and other states that already provide insurance for low-income adults without children will receive more generous federal subsidies than they do now. ●In Texas, which has the highest rate of uninsured residents, approximately 2.4 million more people will join Medicaid, and this expenditure will also increase by 6%.