State governments throughout the nation continuously look for ways to control spending. Beyond education, one of the primary sources of expense for state governments is Medicaid, the program aimed at providing healthcare access for Americans with lower incomes. Writer Eduardo Porter recently tackled the issue of how much money states save by reducing Medicaid expenditures.
As an example of the differences between the states, even though Arkansas’s poverty rate is double Vermont’s, Medicaid’s costs in Arkansas in 2012, the most recent year for which relevant data are available, were $600 less per resident than in Vermont. But what is the cost for such parsimonious budgeting? Children in Arkansas receive fewer routine checkups at doctors’ and dentists’ offices. A higher share of adults forego care because of added expense.
Not coincidentally, more Arkansans are overweight and suffer diabetes. More are disabled -- they die younger, too. A recent study using national data indicates that healthier children are more likely to become productive adults who require less government assistance. By the time Vermont’s children are 60, they will have repaid 56 cents of each additional Medicaid dollar spent on them when young.
