On the recordJuly 24, 2012
I'm going to imagine, Dr. Cassidy, that this chart does not take into account--because it could be, indeed, very difficult to do so, but it has to enter the public mind when we think about these things. The enormous cost on the American public of the well- intentioned, but poorly designed, 2010 health law will make our economy weaker. So it's fair to anticipate that there will be a further impetus to acceleration of Medicaid spending merely because of the imposition of that $2 trillion or more of Washington-generated cost due to the terms of the Affordable Care Act. So this is an issue that concerns every one of us, not only people who are truly in need and unable to sustain a job or their health care--and we've all met these fellow citizens. I have in my own district, the Hudson Valley of New York. These are people like the folks I met at Park, which is a center that provides for people who are severely disabled by developmental disabilities, such as autism, but not only autism. These are good people who, no matter how robust the economy is, will not be able to afford the kind of care that they need. And those are the people in particular who Medicaid was initially intended to help.
