CBPP demolishes Mitch Daniels’ lies about cost of health care reform

Ouch. This has to leave a mark. The Star’s Bill Ruthart had a pretty good piece about this too, juxtaposing Daniel’s fact-free scaremongering with rational quotes from Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius. (Health-care reform: Daniels still doubtful about cost, state’s role | The Indianapolis Star)

Clipped from www.cbpp.org

Indiana also commissioned an analysis of the state’s spending under health reform (albeit for an earlier version of the Senate health reform bill) that is based on faulty assumptions. The analysis asserts that Medicaid enrollment will increase by 495,000 as a result of health reform. [18] Yet, according to Census data, only 264,000 uninsured people in the state have incomes below 133 percent of the poverty line and thus would potentially qualify for Medicaid.[19] The analysis also wrongly assumes that low-income adults now covered under the Healthy Indiana Plan would be covered by Medicaid under the regular Medicaid matching rate. In fact, the federal government would cover nearly the entire cost of covering these individuals under the Medicaid expansion because they would be considered newly eligible for Medicaid.[20]

Contrary to claims made by health reform critics, the Medicaid expansion does not pose substantial financial burdens on states. The additional state spending that will result from the expansion is only 1.25 percent of what states would have spent in the absence of health reform, but it will cover 16 million more people, which will help reduce states’ costs for other programs and bring numerous other benefits to the states. The federal government will pick up most of the costs of the Medicaid expansion, overall making it a good deal for the states.