Some GOP governors say “I told you so” as Medicaid enrollment under the new health law skyrockets beyond expectations, posing difficult choices for Utah and other states that want to expand the program but not at the cost of breaking their budgets.
Reports Politico:
But the money remains a concern not just for foes of expansion like Scott, but for GOP governors like Utah’s Gary Herbert who are trying to come up with some way for their states to expand. Herbert met with HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell in late April and later voiced worries that any form of expansion could mean Medicaid consumes an even bigger chunk of the state budget starting in 2017.
“We’re trying to cover as many people as we can afford,” said Herbert, a Republican who supports expansion but has not yet managed to find the right mix of ACA expansion and conservative variants to bring his legislature on board. “Is it 90,000 or 110,000 people? I don’t know what that’s going to work out to be right now.”
The enrollment surge underscores those fiscal fears.
“If you’re spending twice as much on this program than expected, that’s twice as much money that’s being added to the national debt,” said Nicholas Horton with the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative think tank that has sought to highlight how much expansion enrollment has gone beyond expectations. Even if the states don’t pay nearly as much as the federal government for Medicaid expansion, he said, “You’re still going to spend more money overall. That’s still taxpayer money.”
