Dive Brief:
- Medicaid expansion under the ACA caused record 14% spikes in Medicaid enrollment and spending in fiscal year 2015, according to data from the 15th annual 50-state Medicaid budget survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
- The findings illustrate differences between states, primarily whether or not they expanded Medicaid.
- The 29 states that expanded Medicaid in FY 2015 showed enrollment and spending growth that was nearly triple than the non-expansion states.
Dive Insight:
While the increased costs raise concern among opponents of expansion, the increases fell within state projections and are expected to go down during fiscal year 2016, according to the report.
Increases in expansion states were driven by adults made newly-eligible under the program, bringing enrollment up by an average of 18% and spending up by an average of 17.7%. Meanwhile in non-expansion states, more moderate growth was driven by increased enrollment (5.1%) of previously eligible parents and children for increased spending of 6.1%, likely due to new health insurance exchanges identification of people who were eligible but not enrolled, Kaiser Health News reports.
Among the reports other findings:
- Expansion states saved money in other areas of their budgets such as mental health and hospital care for uninsured patients;
- A number of states are attempting new healthcare delivery models that could help offset the additional spending; and
- Nearly two-thirds of the expansion states reported expenses for new enrollees to be at or below projected costs.