The Commonwealth Fund released an important new report last week.
Expanding Medicaid could create nearly 2,000 Wyoming jobs and grow the state’s overall economic output by $1.5 billion in five years.
The report titled, “Economic and Employment Effects of Medicaid Expansion under the American Rescue Plan Act,” analyzed how states’ decisions to expand Medicaid would affect federal funding, jobs, state economies, and state and local tax revenues. They found while state governments would bear some additional costs, the American Rescue Plan’s bonus incentives plus additional tax revenues would exceed state matching costs.
For Wyoming, that meant tens of millions of dollars in incentives, 24,000 newly insured individuals, as well as 1,900 jobs.
Curious about their methodology? Here’s what they say:
We use REMI’s PI+ (Regional Economic Models, Inc., Policy Insight +) dynamic economic model to estimate these changes (see Technical Appendix for more details). Exhibit 1 illustrates the underlying “multiplier effect” principle: additional federal Medicaid revenue earned by states leads to increased health care revenue, which ultimately translates into increased employment, business, and consumer activity.
Want to read more?
Casper Star Tribune’s Morgan Hughes breaks it all down right here.
