States Absorb Big Increases In Medicaid For Sicker-than-expected Enrollees After Covid-19 Pandemic

States are absorbing substantial increases in health care costs for the poor, as they realize that the people remaining on Medicaid rolls after the COVID-19 pandemic are sicker than anticipated - and costlier to care for.

In Pennsylvania, state budget makers recently unveiled the scale of that miscalculation, with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposing an increase of 2.5 billion in Medicaid spending in the next fiscal year.

That amounts to a roughly 5 increase in overall state spending, mostly driven by the cost to care for unexpectedly sick people remaining on the state's Medicaid rolls.

Costs went up partly because some people put off medical treatment during the pandemic, Shapiro's administration said. As a result, their conditions worsened and became costlier to treat.

"The delays in health care access have had a significant impact on this population - a lack of access to general and specialty care delayed procedures avoidable hospital stays and emergency department visits development of comorbidities and a lack of preventative medicine as a whole," Shapiro's administration said.