Final Notice: Medicaid Crisis, authored by Dr. Jagadeesh Gokhale, was a first of its kind projection of the costs of Medicaid to the state of Texas with and without the federal health care law. The numbers were astonishing. Medicaid, under the health care law, will consume almost half of Texas’ total budget in 2014-15. Dr. Gokhale went on to publish projections for the four other most populous states in America. The growth of Medicaid did differ between the five most populous states, but the reality was consistent: Medicaid, absent significant reform, will bankrupt state budgets in the coming decades.
Sure, huge states with huge programs like Texas, California, and New York are going to be impacted by Medicaid’s growth. But what about smaller states?
Four new studies show that this unsustainable growth of Medicaid is not insulated to big states or big programs. In Kansas, Medicaid costs in 2014 will be 20% higher with the health care law, but they will still double in the next 8 years without the health care law. In Oklahoma, the health care law is projected to increase state Medicaid spending over the next decade by $11.4 billion, but even without it spending will be $11.6 billion higher than it currently is. In Nevada, during this first ten years after 2014 Medicaid spending will increase $2.6 billion without the health care law, but it will increase $8 billion with the health care law. And new study, released today by the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s Medicaid spending would increase 70 percent between 2009 and 2020 without the health care law. With the health care law Kentucky’s Medicaid spending will increase 80 percent in the same timeframe.
Medicaid’s problems are not confined to Texas, New York, and California. The unsustainable growth is hurting large and small states alike. The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Kansas Policy Institute, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, and Nevada Policy Research Institute have done fine work chronicling the problem of Medicaid’s growth, and this should drive every state to seek reforms in order to save their budgets.
– Spencer Harris