Allumbaugh: Medicaid needs reform, not expansion In choosing not to accept the federal Medicaid expansion, Gov. Paul LePage and key legislators in Augusta have acted prudently. Certainly, the prospect of receiving millions more dollars in federal assistance to prop up the state’s ailing program was hard to resist. But for MaineCare, the priority must be to make the program affordable for the long haul — so that 10 or 15 years down the line, Maine still can offer the most vulnerable a health care safety net. When it comes to Medicaid reform, Washington would do well to make Augusta’s priority its own. For all its “promises” of improving health care, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) does nothing to improve the long-term sustainability of Medicaid. Instead, it would pile upward of 16 million more people nationally onto that ever-expanding welfare program. If all states were to expand Medicaid coverage to include those declared potentially eligible under Obamacare, one-in-four Americans will be on Medicaid within 10 years — at a combined cost of $831 billion in state and federal spending by 2021. - See more at: themainewire/2013/07/allumbaugh-medicaid-reform-expansion/#sthash.u4CWcbXW.dpuf
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 14:13:00 +0000
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