{"id":20682,"date":"2014-05-15T13:02:57","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T17:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=20682"},"modified":"2014-05-15T13:02:57","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T17:02:57","slug":"obamacare%e2%80%99s-medicaid-expansion-will-cost-california-an-additional-1-2-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/20682\/obamacare%e2%80%99s-medicaid-expansion-will-cost-california-an-additional-1-2-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"ObamaCare\u2019s Medicaid Expansion Will Cost California an Additional $1.2 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNearly one-third of California\u2019s total population \u2013 roughly 11.5 million people \u2013 will be enrolled in Medi-Cal next year, according to Gov. Jerry Brown\u2019s administration,\u201d reports the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/political\/la-me-pc-california-obamacare-healthcare-expansion-20140513-story.html \" target=\"_blank\">L.A. Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnrollment is expected to exceed previous estimates by 1.4 million, and administration officials said it would cost the state $1.2 billion more than originally thought.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brown\u2019s health policy czar calls the jump in enrollment part of the \u201cwoodworking effect;\u201d meaning that the media&#8217;s attention on ObamaCare\u2019s insurance exchanges enticed many people to sign up, only to find out they already qualified for Medi-Cal (California\u2019s name for its Medicaid program).<\/p>\n<p>Readers may recall that <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/61-state-issues\/1739-republican-governors-opt-for-obamacare-medicaid-expansion-at-taxpayers-expense \" target=\"_blank\">ObamaCare expands eligibility for Medicaid<\/a> into higher income brackets. To get states to go along, ObamaCare pays for all of the new spending associated with covering these new enrollees (at least until 2017). But for those who would have qualified under the old system \u2013 where states contribute 50 cents to every dollar spent \u2013 the state gets no relief.<\/p>\n<p>This is the scenario California finds itself in as officials head into the budget negotiation season needing to find an additional $1.4 billion they didn\u2019t plan for.<\/p>\n<p>Ever the populist, Brown is reframing Sacramento\u2019s miscalculation as a case of voters needing to fund their good intentions. \u201cI\u2019m proud we did it,\u201d referring to the expansion as \u201ca huge social commitment on the part of the taxpayers of California.\u201d \u201cBut we also have to take into account this thing is growing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNearly one-third of California\u2019s total population \u2013 roughly 11.5 million people \u2013 will be enrolled in Medi-Cal next year, according to Gov. Jerry Brown\u2019s administration,\u201d reports the L.A. Times. \u201cEnrollment is expected to exceed previous estimates by 1.4 million, and administration officials said it would cost the state $1.2 billion more than originally thought.\u201d Brown\u2019s [&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":[299,2035,232,4498,61],"class_list":["post-20682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-california","tag-jerry-brown","tag-medicaid","tag-obaamcare","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20682","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=20682"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20696,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20682\/revisions\/20696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}