Medicaid spending up sharply
Social Security's troubles are coming. Medicaid's troubles are now:
Medicaid spending grew about one-third from 2000 to 2003 as job losses and other economic woes made more people eligible for the government-run health insurance program for the poor, a new study said on Wednesday.
Costs rose from $205.7 billion in 2000 to $275.5 billion in 2003, researchers from the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center wrote in the journal "Health Affairs."
"Medicaid played its role as a safety net ... but the result was a sharp increase in program costs," researchers John Holahan and Arunabh Ghosh wrote.
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Researchers said the number of older and disabled Americans also grew as the population aged and life-saving technologies and medicines boosted lifespans. That growth "is likely to continue during most of the decade," they added.
But the alternative to more Medicaid patients would be another financial burden -- more uninsured Americans. "There would have been strong pressure on local hospitals and clinics to increase the amount of free care provided," they wrote.
Despite state efforts to curb enrollment by limiting eligibility, higher spending "placed heavy burdens on state budgets and has contributed to the federal budget deficit," the report found.
Medicaid, which covers one in nine Americans, is already the second largest item in most state budgets. (Link in PDF format.)