{"id":20450,"date":"2014-04-01T18:48:11","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T22:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=20450"},"modified":"2014-04-01T18:48:11","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T22:48:11","slug":"obamacare-promotion-driving-up-medicaid-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/20450\/obamacare-promotion-driving-up-medicaid-applications\/","title":{"rendered":"ObamaCare Promotion Driving Up Medicaid Applications"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAccording to a recent study by Avalere, the average application rate [for Medicaid] has increased 27 percent among non-expansion states and 41 percent for those expanding,\u201d writes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolicy.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/01\/medicaid_expansion_beyond_yes_or_no_894.html \" target=\"_blank\">Angela Boothe<\/a> of the American Action Forum.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Tennessee \u2013 a state that chose not to expand its Medicaid program under ObamaCare \u2013 is still experiencing severe pressure on its budget due to high numbers of people trying to enroll. Though only the beginning of April, the Volunteer State has already enrolled the maximum number of people it projected to cover <em>for the year<\/em>. Adding to the pressure on state budget writers is the reality that by refusing to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare \u2013 which covers 100 percent of the increased costs until 2017 \u2013 part of the expense for covering the new enrollees falls on the state. If you work in a non-Medicaid state agency in Tennessee, beware bean counters wielding knives.<\/p>\n<p>The Avalere report highlights the fact that ObamaCare creates a unique burden for non-expansion states like Tennessee. Because of the controversial health law\u2019s media saturation, millions of people are aware that they are probably eligible for some sort of government assistance to purchase health coverage. Of these, many are discovering that they already qualify for Medicaid, even before ObamaCare was enacted. The awkward situation for states like Tennessee is that ObamaCare is still expanding Medicaid, just without any extra financial help.<\/p>\n<p>If non-expansion states like Tennessee continue to see record Medicaid enrollment increases this year, don\u2019t be surprised if anti-ObamaCare governors and legislatures start to rethink their opposition to expansion. Of course, as I\u2019ve explained elsewhere, it would be a <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/56-health-care\/1496-conservative-governors-are-right-to-resist-medicaid-expansion- \" target=\"_blank\">serious mistake<\/a> to swap a three-year federal bailout for decades of increased costs by expanding Medicaid on ObamaCare\u2019s terms. But for desperate lawmakers looking for a quick fix, ObamaCare\u2019s \u201cfree money\u201d may be too tempting to pass up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAccording to a recent study by Avalere, the average application rate [for Medicaid] has increased 27 percent among non-expansion states and 41 percent for those expanding,\u201d writes Angela Boothe of the American Action Forum. For example, Tennessee \u2013 a state that chose not to expand its Medicaid program under ObamaCare \u2013 is still experiencing severe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70,3308,232,35,61],"class_list":["post-20450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-budget","tag-health","tag-medicaid","tag-obamacare","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20450"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20455,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20450\/revisions\/20455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}