More reasons to reject Medicaid expansion

The Heritage Foundation has an excellent, brief, survey of the academic literature on Medicaid and explains that Medicaid is actually failing the very people it was intended to help. Reasons included:

Medicaid reduces access to care.
Longer wait times and later diagnosis.
Higher in-hospital mortality rates and higher costs.

Health care analyst Merrill Matthews also outlines seven reasons why states should say no to Medicaid expansion. An outline is below and full article at the link above.

1. Medicaid is Bad Medicine;

2. The Exploding Medicaid Population — Medicaid currently covers more than 70 million Americans, and ObamaCare increases that number by an estimated 17 million almost immediately.

3. The Woodwork and Crowd-Out Effects — Those Medicaid growth projections are likely low, as eligible people “come out of the woodwork” to join the program. For example, an estimated 25 percent of the uninsured are eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled.

4. The Cost to State Budgets — Medicaid spending has been growing at about 8 percent a year, compared to economic growth of 1 percent to 2 percent. But ObamaCare puts Medicaid on growth hormones. Total Medicaid spending (state and federal) is projected to grow from about $400 billion to about $900 billion by 2020.

5. Federal Controls — While a bipartisan coalition of governors has asked Washington for more flexibility over their Medicaid program; ObamaCare doubles-down on federal control. If states thought federal mandates and restrictions were suffocating under traditional Medicaid, they will be gasping for air under the expanded portion.

6. Rampant Fraud — Medicaid fraud is rampant and will only get bigger under expansion. No one knows for sure how big the Medicaid fraud problem is, but estimates put it in the range of $60 billion a year.

7. Loss of State Sovereignty — Medicaid is supposed to be a federal-state program. But the Medicaid expansion is one more effort by the federal government to micromanage the states and what they do. That effort is fundamentally breaking down our federalist system, a system in which the federal government has its sphere of authority, as do the sates—and individuals, for that matter.