Debra Miller

The American Health Care Act, or AHCA, the proposed legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 4. The bill contained several major changes to the Medicaid program that, if enacted, would directly impact states’ budgets. CSG estimates the annual state loss of federal Medicaid Funds from the high of $7,210.1 million in California to $16.8 million in Delaware. The median loss is $474.1 million for Connecticut, with half of the expansion states losing less federal funds annually and half of the expansion states losing more federal funds annually.

How much states spend on children’s health, education, income supports and social services differs greatly according to a just-released Urban Institute report, titled Unequal Playing Field.

The top spending state – Vermont – charted per child expenditures of $13,430, three times as much as Utah’s per child spending of $4,594. The national average was $7,923. Spending in each state was  adjusted for the state cost of living.

The Urban Institute released an analysis of the state-by-state impact of the AHCA, 2019 to 2028. The Urban Institute looked at the impact of the proposal on state funding (see Table 5). If states made up for the loss of federal funds with state funds, it would require a 16.1 percent increase in all states' Medicaid spending over the ten year period. 

On Monday, March 6, the House Republicans released the American Health Care Act, the measure intended to fulfill their campaign pledges to repeal and replace the Obama administration Affordable Care Act. Here is the summary provided by the House Republicans. 

Of primary interest to state policymakers, the House plan implements a per capita cap in Medicaid funding, beginning in 2020, based on FFY 2016 spending levels. The House Republican plan has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office so there are no publicly available data on how much this change will cost states and save the federal government.