Medicaid not the biggest reason for U.S. deficits

Medicaid “is contributing to 70 percent of our budget deficit right now. It’s the one that is in our lap because of Obamacare.” — Pat Toomey on Monday on “Morning Joe”

The U.S. senator from Pennsylvania defended the Senate health care bill’s curbing of Medicaid spending by calling Medicaid the single-biggest driver of the federal budget deficit.

Toomey’s office pointed out that spending on Medicaid is equal to 70 percent of the deficit. It divided projections on Medicaid spending in 2017 ($389 billion) by the estimated budget deficit ($559 billions) to get 69.6 percent.

The problem is, that same calculation can be made with any federal program to reach a different conclusion. Defense spending, for example, would account for 113 percent of the deficit.

As for Obamacare’s impact on the deficit through the Medicaid expansion, elderly people and those with disabilities account for two-thirds of the program’s spending, and low-income children account

one-fifth. Those two groups were unaffected by the expansion. Plus, the increased coverage through the expansion was covered by taxes imposed by the Affordable

Care Act so as not to grow the deficit.

Our rating

To o mey said Medicaid is contributing to 70 percent of our budget deficit.

The truth is, Medicaid spending annually is about 70 percent of the size of the federal budget deficit. The same logic, if applied to defense spending, would mean defense spending contributes more than 100 percent to the deficit. Experts say both comparisons are flawed and misleading.

Blaming the Affordable Care Act for the rise in Medicaid spending isn’t entirely right either, as the majority of Medicaid spending was already in place before the law, and taxes were imposed to offset the Medicaid expansion’s strain on the deficit.

Toomey’s claim contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

We rate this statement Mostly False.