Message to the President: Expanding Medicaid Will Not Reduce Federal Spending

Brian Blase / January 26, 2011

Last night in the State of the Union address, President Obama stated that “the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it—in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes. This means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs.”

Is it possible that the President has already forgotten that the health care law included a massive expansion of the broken Medicaid entitlement? According to projected national health expenditures from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicaid spending in 2019 will be $896.2 billion. Without the health care law, CMS projects that the amount would have been $802.4 billion. (more…)