If You Think Health Care Reform is Expensive
Consider how expensive it would be without it. The Urban Institute’s recent report, The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform, provides a state-by-state estimate of Medicaid costs, rates of employer-sponsored insurance, family/employer premium spending, uncompensated care and the uninsured for three different economic scenarios (worst, intermediate, best) between 2009-2019 if no reform measures are enacted.
Consider selected indicators from the worst case scenario for Arizona:
|
2009
|
2019
|
Percent
|
|
|
Medicaid/Chip Spending
|
$8.9B
|
$21B
|
135%
|
|
Uncompensated Care
|
$1.5B
|
$3.5B
|
139%
|
|
Employer Premium Spending
|
$7.7B
|
$18.2B
|
135%
|
|
Individual/Family Spending
|
$6.1B
|
$11.7B
|
92%
|
|
Employer-Sponsored Insurance
|
49.5%
|
42.9%
|
-13.3%
|
|
Uninsured
|
22.8%
|
26.5%
|
16.2%
|
The best case scenario is only marginally better. There, Medicaid/CHIP goes up a mere 86%.