A spokesman for Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback told the Legislature's Joint Committee on Health Policy Oversight that it will develop its own estimate of the cost of expanding Medicaid, before the state commits to the expansion as spelled out in the Affordable Care Act.
"We're continuing to study the issue," said Mark Dugan, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, in a Kansas Health Institute news report. "We would like to come to you with our own numbers."
Kansas has one of the largest exposures to incurring additional costs as a result of Medicaid expansion, since it has one of the most restrictive eligibility criteria in the country. Only adults with children earning less than 32 percent of the federal poverty level (or about $5,900 annually for a family of four) qualify for the low-income insurance program. Medicaid expansion under the ACA would raise that limit to $30,660 for a family of four.
The decision by the Brownback administration comes amid a number of competing estimates of the costs Kansas would incur should it expand Medicaid. A recent analysis by the Kansas Health Institute estimated the expansion would cost the state $70 million the first year and a total of $519 million between 2014 and 2020.
These estimates fall in between those made by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which pegged costs at $525 million for the years 2013 to 2022, and the estimate of the Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank which estimated the Medicaid expansion would cost the state an additional $4.7 billion between now and 2023.
Meanwhile, in Florida, a new estimate on the 10-year costs of Medicaid expansion in that state has reignited partisan sniping on estimates released by the Gov. Rick Scott administration.
The most recent suspicions among healthcare advocates in the state were raised by an estimate from the Agency for Health Care Administration that estimated Florida would be on the hook for $24 billion over ten years should it move ahead with Medicaid expansion. Those numbers are three times greater than estimates released just four months ago by state economists.
"These estimates are hyper-inflated and unreasonable to the point of having no real use whatsoever for planning purposes," said Greg Mellowe, policy director for Florida CHAIN, a healthcare advocacy group, in an AP news report. "They are purely intended to evoke a visceral reaction and not to assist the budgeting process."
But Melissa Sellers a spokesperson for Gov. Scott told AP that the report shows the effects a possible Medicaid expansion would have on the state's low income insurance program and that an expansion "would result in major costs for Florida families."
Currently, the Florida program costs a total of $21 billion annually to administer, including the 58 percent federal matching dollars. The new cost estimate by the Agency for Health Care Administration has not been endorsed by either state economists or the state legislature.