Never-ending Emergency Means 100 Million People on Medicaid Welfare

 Last month, the Biden Administration again extended the federal public health emergency despite the president admitting the pandemic is over. In anticipation of the extension, the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) released a new paper highlighting states’ power to move people from welfare to private insurance options. 

The paper, entitled “Stopping the Medicaid Madness: How Congress and States Can Start Salvaging Some Program Integrity,” illustrates how states can begin to reduce their Medicaid enrollments by removing ineligible recipients, a move that is not allowed during a public health emergency (PHE). The federal “handcuffs” keeping people locked into government programs during the PHE have exacerbated the underlying problems with Medicaid and led to massive increases in state welfare rolls despite affordable private health insurance options.

“President Biden’s Medicaid madness must be stopped. We are a few months away from hitting an all-time high of 100 million people on Medicaid, and the president keeps extending the public health emergency to keep 21 million ineligible people handcuffed to the program. What was meant to be a safety net welfare program for the truly needy has been hijacked and turned into a vehicle for Medicaid for all,” said Sam Adolphsen, FGA’s Policy Director and co-author of the paper.  

“It’s unsustainable. It’s crushing state budgets, piling on the national debt, and eroding the workforce,” added Adolphsen. “If Congress won’t stop this madness, states need to step up and opt out of this terrible deal to protect the program for the truly needy and preserve state budgets.” 

https://thefga.org/press/new-fga-paper-outlines-how-states-can-transition-people-from-medicaid-to-private-health-insurance/