Medicaid Expansion is 49% More Expensive Than Originally "Estimated." - Granite Grok

Medicaid Expansion is 49% More Expensive Than Originally “Estimated.”

medicade- Looks refreshing, but always comes back to haunt you laterMedicaid Expansion is 49% more expensive than originally estimated.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Medicaid expansion costs are much higher than predicted — not that HHS has been eager to share that information.

Brian Blase, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, reviewed the department’s latest actuarial report and found that Medicaid expansion enrollees cost an average of $6,366 in fiscal year 2015 — 49 percent higher than the $4,281 the department projected in 2014,  the first year of federal funding for the expansion.

“The magnitude of HHS’s error reveals a major flaw in the government’s ability to estimate the Affordable Care Act’s costs, and worse, that the actual costs of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion appear much higher than expected,” Blase concluded.

It looks like “someone” will need to find 49% more ‘Free money™’ to keep this Medicaid Expansion thing above water.

 

>