Huge bill from Medicaid feared
As of March, the number of Ohioans enrolled in expanded
If the trend continues, some estimates predict the cost of the program could run more than
While the government has promised to cover the full cost of expansion through 2016 under the auspices of the Affordable Care Act, federal support starts to ratchet down in the second half of 2017.
As enrollment grows in the state and federally funded health insurance program for the poor and disabled, so too will the tax burden on Ohioans, said
"At the end of the day, as long as we have more people on the
He argues that the swelling ranks of newly covered
'We expected to see a rush'
In fact, expansion enrollment actually declined last month for the first time, edging down from 530,412 at the end of February, according to
"We expected to see a rush early on once people who had nowhere else to go were finally eligible for
Rossi said the growth of the expansion group was more than offset by a decline in traditional enrollment, which brought
Total spending on
Much of the savings can be attributed to the state's overestimate of the number of Ohioans who were already eligible for
The so-called woodwork population is covered by traditional
But woodwork enrollment "has been well below projections," Rossi said.
Projected
Rep.
According to Butler, state tax dollars spent on
"We have a problem now without the expansion population added into
Although the federal government has promised to pick up the lion's share of expansion costs, there are no guarantees the state won't eventually find itself on the hook for a larger share, according to Butler.
Advocates scoff at such doomsday predictions.
"It's just not just not warranted by the history of the program,'' said
Critics of
"The billions of federal dollars coming in now and in the future for the expansion population are allowing hospitals to expand services and hire more people," she said. "It's stimulating the economy. Counties are seeing more sales tax revenue. There is a dramatic economic benefit from expansion on one of the most important employment sectors in our economy, the health economy, and that's good for
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