...New York’s Medicaid program has ballooned into America’s most expensive, and its runaway costs are pushing many localities to the brink of fiscal insolvency. Without question, we need real solutions to reform New York’s Medicaid program, reduce costs, increase efficiency and save taxpayer dollars....Medicaid is jointly funded through federal and state government, with the federal financing share constituting approximately 50 percent. In New York, state and local governments share in the program’s cost. The state share is approximately 35 percent; the local share amounts to roughly 15 percent. However, even though localities shoulder a significant portion of Medicaid’s hefty price tag, they have virtually no say in how the program is administered...
Since the program was launched, New York’s Medicaid costs have steadily risen to the highest in America. Medicaid spending in New York is now 69 percent more per beneficiary than the national average. This is why Medicaid was cited by the New York State Association of Counties as the largest of nine state unfunded mandates that consume 90 percent of county budgets and contributes to our having America’s second highest combined state-local tax burden. New York’s Medicaid expenditures have soared due to several factors including our state’s above average share of elderly and disabled residents, higher costs for healthcare practitioners and excessive compliance costs caused by state regulations.
Another reason for our state’s nation-leading Medicaid expenditures is New York’s generous income eligibility levels and extensive optional services, which other states do not provide. All of this contributes to the hefty Medicaid costs state government imposes on localities.
Just how out of control is New York’s Medicaid spending? New York spends more than Texas and Florida combined, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The combined population of Texas and Florida is 43,948,871, while New York’s population is over 19 million, meaning we spend more than Texas and Florida together, even though we have nearly 24 million less residents!
Well, New York
According to a recent study by Ed Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation, the rolls of beneficiaries and the costs of Medicaid continue to rise, bringing state budgets to the point of crisis. Thanks to Obamacare, this process has been accelerated.
Under Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid can be expected to add 35-40 million enrollees in the next ten years, with cost projections amounting to a 35 percent increase of the current state burden of $190 billion. States will face massive cost-sharing increases...
State budgets are already at the breaking point. Thanks to Obamacare, we will soon see the structural collapse of Medicaid. Doctors, nurses and health care providers will disappear or simply stop treating Medicaid patients to survive.
And rationing of health care services will become a deadly reality.
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