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It’s supposed to end on Friday. But the Wall Street Journal says that continued extensions are the left’s best way of expanding the welfare state.
One reason is that in March 2020 Congress barred states from kicking ineligible people off Medicaid rolls during the emergency in return for more federal funding. Medicaid enrollment has ballooned to 95 million—30% of Americans are now enrolled—from 71 million in December 2019.
Another reason: Congress in March 2020 suspended food-stamp work requirements during the emergency and sweetened benefits in states that maintained their own declarations. As of April, 41.2 million Americans were receiving food stamps—an average of $228 monthly per person—which is about 4.4 million more than before the pandemic.
How to control entitlement spending in a democracy is critical to our economic competitiveness and ultimately, survival. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and debt service now account for over half of our Federal spending, again unsustainable. And COVID has exacerbated the problem, certainly.
Financially, the costs associated with Medicaid for younger populations pale in comparison with what we spend on elderly in this country, and at some point the collective “we” must address how many resources to apportion to all populations who draw on our various resources out of proportion to their overall contribution.
Reforming and limiting Medicaid spending, much of which supports frail elderly in nursing facilities anyway, is an important aspirational goal, even as Supreme Court rulings presage a large increase in younger, Medicaid-eligible Americans likely to qualify for services. We need to keep discussions of basic equity at in mind, however, in these conversations. And, while most Medicare recipients may have worked in the past, contributing during working and retirement years, their contributions represent a tiny portion of their ongoing health costs that we need to broaden cost-cutting to Medicare as well. The elderly also suffer from over-reliance on entitlements, and we need to address both issues (especially as the potential financial savings in Medicare dwarf those in Medicaid) as well.