Let’s follow this. Slick said (post #43) he heard that “Medicaid expenses were four billion in 1966 but 73 billion today.”
I responded by stating $4 billion in 1966 dollars is misleading because of inflation. ($4 bil. in 1966 is $30.81 billion today.)
Anthony replied (post #54) that he heard it on the right-wing radio program, of Mark Levin and “it was 4 billion people, not dollars, in 1966.”
First, there weren’t 4 billion people on Medicaid in 1966 or today, because the U.S. population is only 325 million. What I think ‘slick’ got wrong was “billion” when he meant million and “people” not “dollars.”
Second, while there may have been 4 million people on Medicaid in 1966, all the states hadn’t joined the program until 1972.
Third, in 1966, the baby-boomers were teenagers. Now, they are retired or post-retired. One of the leading users of Medicaid is seniors living on nursing homes. So, it’s not surprising that Medicaid usage has grown because of total population growth but also because of the aging population. I guess it’s a good thing that we have Medicaid, huh? It equally true that it's bad that the Republicans want to scale back or eliminate Medicaid.
They say that statistics don't lie but liars use statistics. This is an example of Mark Levin lying with factual statistics.
