Paying Money to Be Able to Give It Away
I’ve updated the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s chart on the costs per HealthSource RI enrollee, broken down by the categories of application progress. In brief, the health benefits exchange received in direct federal grants $61,532 per current paid enrollee, $37,421 per people on applications for paid policies, and $12,502 per people on applications, including those who’ll be getting their plans for free, through Medicaid.
That doesn’t tell the whole story, however. So far, 5,280 of the 7,929 applicants are eligible for Medicaid, while only 313 will buy their insurance with no additional subsidies at all. In other words, referring to the following chart, only the $3.9 million, of the $99.1 million, associated with the 4% of plans that will be unsubsidized represents the total taxpayer burden for those beneficiaries.



