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March 1, 2011
Report: ObamaCare to cost states $118 billion in next twelve years
Topics: Political News and commentariesIt's the dirty little secret about Obamacare and exactly what people should have known would happen when the federal government mandated a massive expansion of Medicaid. According to a Republican report released today, the bill will cost twice as much as first estimated, hammering state budgets already in crisis mode:
The expansion of Medicaid under President Obama's health care law will cost state taxpayers at least $118.04 billion through 2023, about twice the Congressional Budget Office estimate of $60 billion through 2021, Republican members of Congress said today.As Ed Morrissey points out, while Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress promised health-insurance coverage for everyone without expanding the federal deficit, the programs burdened the states with mandates to expand Medicaid to cover the now-uninsured. Ben Nelson got his Cornhusker Kickback to protect Nebraska from the financial hardship of those mandates for a few years, but otherwise Obama and the Democrats left states holding the bag for their new entitlement program.[...] "Governors of both political parties were clear when Congress was debating the $2.6 trillion health law that they could not afford a massive expansion in Medicaid. Washington didn't listen and plowed forward instead by putting 16 million Americans onto the Medicaid rolls to keep the federal price tag down," said Hatch. "With this report, we see the true cost to states, who are already facing a collective $175 billion budget shortfall, of this unsustainable expansion."
"Any sustainable attempt by governors to balance their budgets is undermined by the $118 billion cost of the massive growth of this federal program. It's time for Congress to peel this program back by putting states, not the federal government, back in charge."
Like Obama's budget, what Obamacare has wrought upon the states is unsustainable. As Morrissey goes on to point out, there is no such thing as "free" health insurance coverage, nor unlimited public resources. Any way you look at it, eventually, taxpayers will be the ones that pay for ObamaCare through massive tax hikes, massive reductions in other services, or both, and they'll do so at both the state and federal levels.
Taxpayers should have known this train was coming.
Posted by Richard at March 1, 2011 11:10 AM
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