We need a comprehensive, objective assessment of the viability of the ACA
WASHINGTON, DC – If it weren’t for all the bad news, there would not be any news at all about Obamacare, according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens. He reports that the latest annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services reveals a “staggering” increase in the cost for Medicaid expansion enrollees.
Brian Blasé, a senior research fellow at George Mason University discovered the anomaly and wrote about it in a recent issue of Forbes magazine. “Specifically, HHS found that the ACA’s Medicaid expansion enrollees cost an average of $6,366 in FY 2015-49% higher than the $4,281 amount that the agency projected in last year’s report.”
The unexpected spike, wrote Blasé, exposes the government’s inability to estimate Obamacare costs. HHS had projected that the per enrollee cost of the newly eligible adults would decline by 22% in FY 2015 and would be about 11% less than those for other previously eligible adults.
Blasé said “It turns out that those projections were way off. Instead of a decline in per enrollee costs from FY 2014 to FY 2015, the newly eligible adult per enrollee cost increased significantly, reaching an estimated $6,366. HHS now projects that the newly eligible adult Medicaid enrollees will cost about 23% more than the previously eligible Medicaid enrollees in FY 2015.”
Weber used the Blasé report to call on lawmakers to take another, fresh look at the law and to, perhaps, call on a special, independent auditor to articulate its flaws. “It’s long been suspected that the Affordable Care Act is based on fuzzy math, but Blasé seems to have found proof of the fact that the ACA has left taxpayers holding the bag yet again. It is incumbent upon Congress to go into meticulous detail in examining the HHS books. We need a clear and honest calculation of just how much we are paying for President Obama’s so-called legacy. And, we need an objective assessment of the viability of the ACA going forward,” Weber said.
He added that whoever wins the race for the White House in November “there needs to be a comprehensive audit of the ACA books. It has become more and more obvious in the years since it was foisted on the American people that Obamacare is a jerry-built piece of legislation and that it is about time that, politics aside, there should be bipartisan endeavor to scrap the law and replace it with one that makes sense and is truly affordable.”
