South Carolina Healthcare Voices

From The Washington Post:

Witnesses at a hearing on Medicaid legislation in Florida last month

By Glenn Kessler– 07/05/2011

“Cash-strapped states are also feeling the burden of the Medicaid entitlement. The program consumes nearly 22 percent of states’ budgets today, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.”

— Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), June 23, 2011, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee

 “Medicaid is the lion’s share of that spending burden as it now consumes about 22 percent of state budgets now and will consume $4.6 trillion of Washington’s budget over the next ten years.”

— Former Kentucky governor Ernest Lee Fletcher (R), June 23, 2011, at the same hearing

“Across the country, governors are concerned about the burgeoning cost of Medicaid, which in fiscal 2010 consumed nearly 22 percent of state budgets, according the National Association of State Budget Officers. That’s larger than what states spent on K-12 public schools.”

— Washington Post front page article, June 14, 2011

When a statistic is universally tossed around as a certified fact, it’s time to get suspicious.

Such is the case with this oft-cited statistic that 22 percent of state budgets is being gobbled up by Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health coverage for the poor and the disabled. Medicaid supposedly is even dwarfing what is spent on educating children and teenagers.

But note the phrase “state-federal.” There’s billions of dollars in federal money involved, and the “22-percent” statistic obscures that fact. Let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. (more…)

Filed under: Medicaid | Tagged: Antonia Ferrier, Brian Sigritz, Colleen Chapman, Ernest Lee Fletcher, Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, Great Society, Lyndon Johnson, National Association of State Budget Officers, Office of the Actuary for Medicare and Medicaid, Orrin Hatch, Senate Finance Committee, Utah | Leave a Comment »