By GETLIBERTY.org Americans for Limited Government
One of the central aspects ObamaCare besides the individual mandate to purchase insurance is the expansion of Medicaid eligibility to 133 of the poverty level.
To entice Democrat lawmakers especially in the Senate to vote for this Senate leaders assured the states that the federal government would cover the costs of the expansion until 2014. After that they said the states would be responsible for paying for 10 of the expansion.
According to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured the Medicaid expansion would result in large increases in eligibles in most states and many new enrollees. Not only would eligibility standards be extended but the individual mandate though somewhat difficult to enforce at these income levels will mean that large numbers of both previously eligible and newly eligible people will enroll."
In other words costs will go up. A lot.
Now the states are pushing back.
Their case: the cost increases are immediateand they are devastating. As reported by the AP Arizona has said that the new Senate bill is forcing Arizona to rescind cuts it intended to make to Medicaid to balance its budget.
As a result says Arizona the state will have to pay at least $3.8 billion in additional costs before 2014.
It gets worse from the AP report For the seven years starting in 2014 Arizona will have to spend an additional $7.8 billion AHCCCS Director Tom Betlach said in the report."
Thats money the people of Arizona simply do not have.
Arizona which already faces a $2 billion deficit on a $10 billion budget this year now must find nearly an additional $1 billion to pay for the Medicaid cost increases.
In contrast if Arizonas eligibility had not been expanded its costs over that same seven year period would have only been $1.8 billion. Therefore thanks to ObamaCare by 2020 Arizona will be a full $9.8 billion more in the hole than they would have been. This is a
state that is literally on the brink of bankruptcy.
Only California has a worse financial predicament than Arizona.
And that is just one example.
In South Carolina the states
Department of Health and Human Services has said that the Medicaid expansion through 2019 will cost and additional $914 million or about $100 million a year. South Carolina already faces a $1 billion deficit this year alone and now will have to find additional sources of revenue to pay for what amounts to a mandate.
Coupled with mandatory insurance the states are in effect being forced to bear the burden of anyone who is eligible for expanded Medicaid. Consider California where according to the states deputy director of health care programs the extra load will cost at least an additional $2 billion to $3 billion annually."
From 2014 to 2020 those additional costs could therefore range anywhere from $14 to $21 billion.
In sum the costs of the Medicaid expansion will be far beyond what anybody has estimated. For a state like California the costs could be tens of billions of dollars by 2020. And for states in such fiscal dire straits like California New York Arizona and others that is the difference between solvency and insolvency.
Therefore these new costs will be more than the states can bear which is why at least eleven states are suing in federal court over the costs involved according to Bloomberg News.
The suits will need the support of the American people and a little bit of luck in the federal courts to be successful.
For if they are not and the legislation is not repealed entirely the states will likely be bankrupted.
