The rising price of health care costs – Round 1

Deltek Analyst Kate Tussey reports.

As Deltek combs through this year’s budget documents, it would be hard not to write an analysis on one of the biggest budget line items for every state: health care costs centered around Medicaid spending. Health care reform is one of the hottest topics of recent years, and will continue to dominate headlines as we head closer to the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) this summer. For those not in the health care field, beginning January 1, 2014, the ACA will expand Medicaid eligibility to all people below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, adding an estimated 15.9 million newly-eligible individuals to Medicaid by FY 2019. The federal government is planning to pay a high share of the new Medicaid costs in all states, with one study from the Kaiser Family Foundation reporting a federal spending increase by nearly $450 billion, and state spending increasing by $20 billion from FY 2014-2019.