Fix Health Care Policy

Obamacare Medicaid Expansion: States Should Be Realistic, Not Optimistic

Months since the Supreme Court ruling that made the Obamacare Medicaid expansion optional, the state costs associated with expansion still remain highly uncertain—making expansion a dicey course for states and their budgets.

Indeed, states should not lose sight of the fact that the original Medicaid expansion was coercive for a reason. As Nina Owcharenko, director of Heritage’s Center for Health Policy Studies, points out, “The fact that the authors of Obamacare felt the need to threaten states with total defunding tells you that they knew many states would resist expanding their programs—even with 100 percent federal funding.”

States are still weighing their options. Many of them have commissioned studies to project the state costs of expanding. However, all cost estimates reflect the assumptions used to construct them, and using different assumptions can result in estimates varying wildly between (and sometimes within) states.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: defunding, different assumptions, Medicaid Expansion, ObamaCare, States, Supreme Court, voluntary

Six Reasons States Should Be Skeptical of Medicaid Expansion Cost Estimates

As states weigh their options regarding the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid, many have sought out cost estimates to assist them. However, in a new paper, Heritage experts Ed Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski caution state lawmakers that state cost estimates rest on key assumptions, some of which may be questionable.

There are six reasons state cost estimates could be unreliable:

Read the reasons on The Foundry…

Tags: bad deal, higher costs, Medicaid Expansion, ObamaCare, repeal the law, taxpayers, voluntary