Check out the chart below:
It’s from Pew Foundation and it illustrates how Washington’s explosion in Medicaid and other health care spending due to ObamaCare and how other payments from Washington to the various stats are shrinking. No matter how you look at it, health care spending is “crowding out” other funding to the states. This could be seen as a good thing or a bad thing, but it is hard to believe that Washington would have cut spending in these other areas without such massive growth in health care.
Arguably, this is just another indicator that Washington’s role is moving from “doing things” like building roads to simply making transfer payments from one group to another in the form of welfare payments.
Paul, I can’t understand the right side of the chart or how it relates to the left side. Did some information get left out? For example, what does “Total” refer to?
Could you provide a link to the chart and related info provided by the Pew Foundation?
Thanks.
Here is the original document from Pew.
The left side breaks the various federal grants to states in more detail while the right side simply shows health vs. non-health grants. Basically, despite overall spending continuing to rise dramatically from Washington to the states, it is all going to health care and Medicaid.
Thanks, Paul.