Medicaid Expansion in ObamaCare to Cost Utah Taxpayers $1.2 Billion Over Next Decade

Press Release

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, today presented Utah Gov. Gary Herbert with a joint congressional committee report outlining the $1.2 billion price tag to the Beehive State due to the massive expansion of the Medicaid program in the new health law.

The report, Medicaid Expansion in the New Health Law: Costs to the States, put together by the Senate Finance Committee, Minority and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Majority is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of state government estimates on the cost of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to state Medicaid programs.

Hatch, who released the report with Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Chairman of the House Energy And Commerce Committee, said the study shows the financial burdens the health law will impose on cash-strapped states, including Utah, would be dire.

"With Utah and other states already struggling financially, expanding the unsustainable Medicaid program is inexcusable," Hatch said. "But that is what the President and his Washington allies are doing, despite the fact that when Congress was debating the $2.6 trillion health law, Governor Herbert and other governors of both political parties made it clear that they could not afford a massive expansion of Medicaid. This is nothing short of a bait and switch aimed at making Utah and other states, which are already facing a collective $175 billion budget shortfall, foot the bill for this ill-conceived expansion. It's time for Congress to peel back this program by putting states, not Washington, back in charge."

The report estimates, in addition to the new $2.6 trillion in federal spending, the health law will cost states' taxpayers at least $118.04 billion through 2023 -- more than double the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) recent estimate of $60 billion through 2021. The cost to Utah taxpayers is another $1.2 billion over 10 years.

In a March 2010 letter to Hatch, Herbert wrote: "Medicaid expansion ignores the fiscal impact on states" and added the health law would put more Utahns on Medicaid. "Instead, we need to get more people off Medicaid and covered by private insurance," the governor added in the letter.

Established in 1965, Medicaid was designed as a limited, shared state-federal safety-net program for low-income Americans, not a permanent solution for medical care. When it was first established, fewer than five million Americans used Medicaid services; however, today one in four are enrolled in the government program. Furthermore, today, Medicaid spending absorbs nearly a quarter of state government budgets, often forcing significant cuts to other state programs, such as education and law enforcement.

The enactment of PPACA in March 2010 is the largest expansion of the entitlement program since its inception more than 45 years ago. Half of those obtaining health care coverage under the new law will get it through Medicaid. This bicameral report, Medicaid Expansion in the New Health Law: Costs to the States, provides an in-depth state-by-state analysis of the financial impact ObamaCare will have on States and demonstrates the unsustainable fiscal burden this new law will foist upon taxpayers.

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