Health & Fitness
Paying for Medicaid: How will NH do it?
The Union leader Editorial Page is asking the right question. The NH State Senate should have asked the same question, who is going to pay for this? and How?
"Obama-care has been increasing New Hampshire Medicaid costs for six months, well before the start of the state’s Medicaid expansion. The price of ignoring math is going to be high.
Since January, Medicaid enrollment in New Hampshire has increased by 11,000, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. As New Hampshire Public Radio put it, an “unexpected surge in Medicaid enrollments during the past six months is putting pressure on the state’s budget.”
But the increase was not unexpected. Obamacare’s individual mandate compels people to obtain insurance coverage, either by buying insurance or going on a government program such as Medicaid. As we have noted in this space repeatedly over the last several years, that will drive a lot of people to sign up for what they perceive as “free” Medicaid coverage.
Find out what's happening in Salemwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The individual mandate officially took effect on Jan. 1 of this year. Presto — 11,000 new Medicaid enrollees in six months!
The state has to pay 50 percent of the costs for these new enrollees. The state’s Medicaid budget is already $37 million in the red. From where will the money come?
Responsible critics of Obamacare have asked that question for years. Obamacare supporters Gov. Maggie Hassan, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster have ignored the cost issue. Now the state has to deal with it, and there is no money in the budget to do that.
Find out what's happening in Salemwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
This all happened before New Hampshire expanded Medicaid eligibility from 63 percent to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, an expansion the state cannot pay for when Washington’s 100 percent funding starts to drop in three years.
As the state continues to irresponsibly expand benefits it cannot finance, the pressure for a broad based tax rises."
Senator Peggy Gilmour, who is going to pay for this and how?
The very reason many of the senators have a primary is because of this irresponsible legislation .To burden NH tax payers with this extension of ACA/Obama-care, along with the Gas tax and County Taxes is inexcusable.
The focus should have been on creating a business friendly environment which would ease the burden of property taxes, but that doesn't appear to be the focus of late ...
Voters that I am talking to are angry and nervous that leadership isn't listening to the people anymore. The big money (lobbyist) and establishment in both party's are so cozy with each other that they have lost their first love which should be the service of the people.
