FROM HEALTH AFFAIRS
States that expanded Medicaid in 2014 both increased and decreased their Medicaid spending that year, compared with the nonexpansion states, according to an analysis from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The 26 states, along with the District of Columbia, that expanded Medicaid eligibility by the end of 2014 had an increase in total Medicaid spending of 12.3% over 2013, compared with an increase of 6.2% in nonexpansion states.
Spending per person, however, was a different story. In the nonexpansion states, per-person spending on Medicaid rose by 5.1% from 2013 to 2014, but the expansion states decreased spending by 5.1%, reported David Lassman and his associates of the CMS Office of the Actuary, Baltimore (Health Aff. 2017. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0416).
The expansion of coverage “increased the share of … less expensive enrollees relative to the previous Medicaid beneficiary population mix,” the investigators said. Medicaid expansion brought in more relatively inexpensive adults – 43% of total enrollment in 2014, compared with 32% in 2013 – and reduced the proportion of disabled and aged enrollees, whose cost per person is much higher, they explained.
Private health insurance spending showed a different pattern: Nonexpansion states had larger increases in both higher per-person and overall costs than did expansion states. Per-person costs were up 3.4% for nonexpanders and 2.7% for expanders, and total costs rose 6.8% in nonexpansion states and 4.6% in the Medicaid expanders, Mr. Lassman and his associates said. Higher per-person spending growth for enrollees in the state and federal marketplaces, compared with nonmarketplace individual coverage, was partially responsible for this trend, they pointed out.
