Medicaid: Who pays, and how?
Even with the healthcare law's expansion of the program, it's a good deal for cash-strapped states.The vast expansion of Medicaid in the 2010 healthcare reform law put Washington on a collision course with cash-strapped state governments, which have been scrambling to reduce the cost of the joint federal-state insurance program for the poor and disabled. That conflict reaches the Supreme Court on Wednesday, when lawyers for 24 states will seek to bar Congress from adding millions of Americans to the program's rolls. Meanwhile, the House is considering a Republican budget proposal that would cap Medicaid spending and hand over control to the states. Neither approach, however, would solve the program's budget problems, which mirror those faced by the entire healthcare system.