It’s right to roll back Medicaid’s COVID-19 provisions

The
Congressional Budget Office
projects
a federal budget deficit of $1.4 trillion for the current fiscal year ending in September 2023. That projected deficit amounts to 5.3% of GDP. Still, President
Joe Biden
promises to protect
Social Security
and
Medicare
, the two principal
drivers of the deficit
. His proposals for tax increases on the very wealthy and on corporations are dead on arrival in Congress.

Republicans are equally to blame for the impasse.

The Republican leadership has also promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. The Republican-controlled House will not vote to raise taxes. The president and Congress cannot affect monetary policy. That leaves Medicaid. One element of the nation’s broader
healthcare inflation crisis
, Medicaid spending is growing at almost a double-digit rate to well over
$700 billion
.

Fortuitously, as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, legislation was enacted to reduce a COVID-19-related expansion of Medicaid. Under the COVID expansion, Medicaid spending exploded, up almost 20% in just three years. Federal spending on Medicaid grew from $521 billion in fiscal 2021 to $601 billion in fiscal 2023. Because of the enacted legislation to eliminate the COVID expansion of Medicaid, spending on Medicaid is projected to fall to
$545 billion
in fiscal 2024, which begins on Oct. 1 of this year. Those are real savings.

A DARKER DEFICIT PICTURE

On the matter of rolling back Medicaid, three facts are important. First, in spite of Medicaid expansion, life expectancy is declining in the U.S. Second, the National Bureau of Economic Research
concludes
that the expansion of Medicaid results in no measurable physical benefits. Third, Medicaid recipients place a
low value
on the benefits of the program.

Rolling back Medicaid is good policy. Ignore the whining by the Left.

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James Rogan is a former U.S. foreign service officer who later worked in finance and law for 30 years. He writes 
a daily note
 on finance and the economy, politics, sociology, and criminal justice.