Medicade and Obama Care

If it's not clear that Medicaid helps people get and stay healthy, one thing is for sure: The program, which is already either the single-biggest or second-biggest annual budget item for every state in the country, spends huge amounts of money and that will only increase.

Medicaid has for a long time posted year-over-year spending increases. Between 2000 and 2011 (PDF), the average increase was 6.8 percent and total expenditures on the program came to $432 billion in 2011 (PDF). The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that annual increases will average about 6.4 percent until 2021, when the federal government and states will spend $795 billion on the program.

Read more here.

You got that? "The rare early success story" of Obama care is that a massively expensive program that doesn't actually accomplish its core objective has jacked up the number of people enrolled in it. The one benefit of Medicaid is that it reduces the likelihood of medically induced bankruptcy for some recipients. There's an easier and more effective way to accomplish that.

So break out the champagne because Medicaid is booming? We really can't afford to do that now and will be even less likely in a few years.