Thursday, February 12, 2015

CT Mirror looks at Medicaid spending – per person down, but total spending up – and that’s OK

A new analysis of CT’s Medicaid spending by CT Mirror outlines 5 things everyone should know. My top 5, below, overlap the Mirror’s.
     1.   Per person spending is down, especially among newly eligible childless adults
     2.   Total spending is up – because we have a lot more people in the program
     3.   But that’s OK -- the federal government pays 100% of the costs for newly eligible members (For now. So it’s a very good thing CT ramped up outreach to get people into the program while the feds are paying 100% of the costs. Eventually CT will have to pay 10% of the costs of their care – still a great deal.)
     4.   Medicaid spending this year is $120 million more than budgeted
     5.   But that’s largely due to one-time, temporary problems that will be fixed, and some overly optimistic assumptions/aspirations (this happens sometimes, especially in election years).

The Mirror article also points out how much enrollment has grown and that populations within Medicaid have very different costs. It’s critically important for everyone to understand the context of Medicaid spending as we await the Governor’s budget proposal next week.