Obamacare Hitting the States
A brief article in the New York Times this morning discussed the annual State Expenditure Report released by the National Association of State Budget Officers yesterday. The title of the Times piece tells the tale: “Bigger Share of State Cash for Medicaid.” Medicaid is the largest portion of state budgets, and growing at a large – and unsustainable – rate.
A good chart from the NASBO report shows how Medicaid funding has swallowed up other state priorities. The chart (pasted below) demonstrates that in the fiscal year just concluded, Medicaid grew by 10.1% – nearly three times the rate of higher education spending (3.4%), and much faster than spending on elementary and secondary education (2.1%), public assistance (1.8%), corrections (1.3%), or transportation (3.0%). Some of that Medicaid spending increase is due to increased enrollments associated with the recession, but also to blame is the fact that the Administration has refused governors’ multiple requests for flexibility from the new Medicaid mandates included in Obamacare.
At a time when states face budget deficits totaling a collective $175 billion, Obamacare is imposing new unfunded mandates of at least $118 billion. The NASBO report vividly documents the impact those unfunded mandates are having on states – now, and for years and years to come.
