“In 2000, states spent about 12% of their own revenue on Medicaid. Since then, the share has increased to over 17%, driven mostly by increases in enrollment. According to Pew, more than twice as many people were enrolled in Medicaid in 2017 than in 2000…
“A contributor to the enrollment increase was states expanding Medicaid coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). From 2014 to 2017, 31 states expanded their Medicaid programs to households earning 138% of the federal poverty level. The federal government paid for the entire cost of expansion for the first three years but beginning in 2017 states were required to pay 5% of the cost. The states’ share increases from 5% to 10% this year, which is likely to further increase the percentage of revenue states spend on Medicaid…
“The states that spent the largest share of their own revenue on Medicaid in 2017 were New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Louisiana, and Massachusetts. New York spent nearly 30% of its own revenue on Medicaid, up 2.3 percentage points since 2000. Louisiana and Massachusetts both spent 22% in 2017, but Louisiana’s percentage doubled since 2000 while Massachusetts’s increased by seven percentage points. Only four states had percentages lower than 10% in 2017: Utah (5.8%), Hawaii (8.2%), Nevada (9.4%), and Idaho (9.9%).”
Source: Adam Millsap, Forbes Magazine.
