During the debate two years ago over the health care law—which I called an historic mistake because it expanded a health care delivery system we already knew was too expensive, instead of taking steps to reduce its cost two years ago—I suggested to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who were supporting it that, if they voted for it, they ought to be sentenced to go home and run for governor and see whether they could implement it over an eight-year period.
Governors have long wrestled with the rising costs of Medicaid, paid for partly by the states according to rules set in Washington, and the question of how to deal with public education, especially higher education. Some 30 years ago, when I was a young governor, I was still struggling with the fact that at the end of the budget process, we had money either to put into higher education or into Medicaid – but the rules from Washington said it had to go to Medicaid.
I remember going to see President Reagan and asking: ‘Why don’t we just swap it, Mr. President? Let the federal government take all of Medicaid. Let the states take elementary and secondary education.’ That didn’t happen, and gradually, the increasing Washington-directed costs have distorted state budgets so much that now 24 percent of the state budgets go to the Medicaid program.
Because of the health care law, we are going to add 25.9 million more Americans to Medicaid, according to the Medicaid Chief Actuary.
Our former governor, Governor Bredesen, a Democratic governor, estimated that between 2014 and 2019 the expansion of Medicaid would add $1.1 billion in new costs to the state of Tennessee.
