CPPP Sets the Record Straight (again) on Expanding Texas Medicaid

On Sunday the New York Times published an editorial about the Medicaid expansion in Texas painting an inaccurate picture of what the actual cost to the state would be, and obscuring the potential benefits of the expansion to our economy:

The Texas cost estimate cited (“$20 billion…over a decade”) was drawn from an inflated agency analysis that adds mandated Medicaid expansion costs to a mixture of real and speculative non-reform Medicaid costs. The estimate projected Medicaid costs from 2014 to 2023, adding four years of Medicaid expansion to the 2010-2019 time frame for scoring reform bills. The agency also included costs to cover hundreds of thousands of Texas children eligible for Medicaid right now, but uninsured because of the crisis in Texas’ enrollment system. Covering these kids will entail real state budget costs, only avoided at present because of failed state policies. They do not belong on the national reform balance sheet. The agency also speculated the state might have to fully replace local revenues now used to fund special Medicaid hospital payments, and included those costs. Under House and Senate bills, Texas will gain $10 to $18 federal dollars for each new state dollar we must budget, a potential economic boon. But states view the coming costs of reform coverage through the lens of current hefty revenue gaps. Without short-term federal help with immediate Medicaid costs, states will be ill-prepared to handle the expanded Medicaid caseloads of health reform.