States are clearly among the winners under the Health Security Act.
The study also examines changes in each state's private health care costs, providing estimates of savings to businesses and workers in each state. In recent years, record-high growth rates in the Medicaid program have consumed a growing portion of state budgets, taking state resources away from other priorities, such as education, fighting crime, expanding job training, and improving roads and highways. In 1993, states spent more money on health care than they did on tax-financed higher education. In the last three years, state Medicaid costs have grown from just over 8 percent of state budgets in 1990 to 12 percent in 1993, and are projected to consume nearly 18 percent of state budgets in the year 2000. States will achieve additional savings in the provision of long-term care services.