Almost twice the number of people originally projected – who were able-bodied – are currently in the Medicaid expansion. These statistics are released as per the latest report about the Medicaid Expansion, released by the Foundation for the Governmental Accountability.
Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion project is being scrutinized by this foundation ever since the inception of the idea and implementation of the program. The program after one year into the expansion project exceeded the expectations in states with huge projections of an average of 61 percent.
“By the end of 2016, states had enrolled more than twice as many able-bodied adults than they said would ever enroll,” the report stated. “To date, more than 12.7 million able-bodied adults are now dependent on Medicaid as a result of 31 states’ decisions to expand Obamacare.”
This increased number of expected enrollments and participants in the Medicaid caused the resources to be crowded, and not enough for those who are truly needy of the benefits offered by the program. The report further found out that there were almost a rough 650,000 Americans who have been waiting patiently for long period of times on the long waiting list of Medicaid.
The states involved in the expansion of the Medicaid went on to underestimate the potential enrollments and as a result, the report indicates that the other states which haven’t expanded their Medicaid programs may be facing similar high rates of enrollments in the program.
“States have already enrolled 55 percent more able-bodied adults than the Kaiser Family Foundation projected would sign up by 2022,” the report said.
On the basis of these projections, the study projected that 11.4 million of these able-bodied adults would become dependent on the Medicaid Program – if the rest of the states decide on expansion too. This additional weight of the expansion would cost the taxpayers a huge sum of $676 billion.
“Congress should repeal Obamacare expansions’ enhanced funding for all states including current expansion states,” the report indicated. “After all, every single dollar spent on Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion is a dollar that cannot be spent on the truly needy.”
The Research director and the author of this report – Nicholas Horton said that the Obamacare’s expansion went on to trap millions of adults in the welfare, and has wasted billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, while those who are truly needy remain far from getting benefits of these programs.
“States that have rejected expansion should be proud—they have saved themselves from this nightmare,” Horton had said. “But states that did expand Obamacare have some work to do. They need pursue commonsense solutions to unwind this failed program, like work requirements and enrollment freezes, while Congress should immediately stop new expansions in order to reduce dependency and prioritize the truly needy.”