Big savings!

In figuring out the cost of one-third of states refusing Medicaid expansion, the real information isn’t in the answers. It’s in asking the right questions. This story includes no information about how much money those uninsured people will eventually cost the taxpayers under other line items — like the programs that exist to pay for their medical bills, administered through hospitals, or the projected increase in Social Security disability claims. Nor does it address the human cost of having three million uninsured people. But as we know, we are all merely disposable digits in the grand national austerity movement! Sarah Kliff:

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its analysis of how the Supreme Court decision will impact the Affordable Care Act’s budget. The big ticket takeaway is this: The non-partisan scorekeeper estimates that 3 million people fewer people will gain coverage due to states opting out of the Medicaid expansion, resulting in $84 billion less in federal spending.

Let’s break down those numbers a bit. The Congressional Budget Office does not list out which states could pass up the Medicaid expansion. But it does predict that “some states will probably forgo the expansion entirely.”

The CBO then estimates that for every person who does not enroll in Medicaid because of that, and goes uninsured, the federal government saves $6,000 in spending by 2022. For the average person who does not enroll in Medicaid, but instead gets subsidized coverage from the health insurance exchange, the federal government spends $9,000 – $3,000 more than they would have had those individuals been in Medicaid.

“With about 6 million fewer people being covered by Medicaid but only about 3 million more people receiving subsidies through the exchanges and about 3 million more people being uninsured…the projected decrease in total federal spending on Medicaid is larger than the anticipated increase in total exchange subsidies,” the CBO concludes.