[Below is an excerpt of Heartland Director of Government Relations, John Nothdurft’s June 20, 2013 testimony before the Pennsylvania House Committee on Health in opposition to the state expansion of Medicaid. For the full testimony, please click on the PDF link above.]
Medicaid expansion is an expensive endeavor that many critics believe will limit access to care and lower the quality of care. The reforms under PPACA are intended to allow states to expand their Medicaid programs to more people and improve the care those patients receive. But recent research has found that neither the cost nor the quality of health care is likely to improve under PPACA. Expanding instead of reforming an already broken Medicaid system will subject even more Pennsylvanians to a program that provides inferior care.
If it chooses to expand Medicaid, the state of Pennsylvania would be choosing to take on a substantial financial burden for a program that produces very poor health care outcomes. The Medicaid system is now, and will continue to be, fiscally unsustainable without reform. Instead of expanding a flawed model that wastes taxpayer dollars while shifting more power to the federal government, state lawmakers should focus instead on reform options that reduce costs and offer better care to patients in the existing system.
John Nothdurft joined the staff of The Heartland Institute in May 2008 and left in January of 2019.
