Congress is considering legislation to constrain future growth in federal Medicaid expenditures by changing Medicaid’s financing structure, replacing it with a system of per capita caps. A key question in considering the potential impact of these two bills is how Medicaid spending under the caps would compare to historical and projected trends in Medicaid spending under current law.
This brief looks at historical and projected spending for Medicaid and other payers, and how these compare to common measures of inflation and income. The brief compares projected Medicaid spending growth by enrollee group to the growth factors included in the House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA, H.R. 1628) and the Senate’s draft Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (BCRA).