The Republican governors and lawmakers have stated that the health reform bill will cost more for the states. Republican Governors Gary Herbert of Utah and Haley Barbour of Mississippi have testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the expansion of the Medicaid will be costly to the individual states. They added that states need more flexibility to create health care systems that would fit their needs.

Health-Reform-Law Starting 2014, the reform law requires each state to expand Medicaid qualification to include everyone who earns up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. That is $30,000 a year for a family of four. It is estimated that tens of millions of people will be added to the Medicaid program.

The Republican-controlled committee released a report that showed that the Medicaid expansion program will result into a $118 billion added cost to the states’ budget by 2023. That’s almost double the $60 billion projected cost by 2021 that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office came up.

The states are already feeling the pressure of the huge Medicaid budget this year. The news reports contradicts with White House’s projection that the health reform bill will result into savings. White House spokesman Nick Papas said that a study by the Urban Institute that showed that states can save up to $131.9 billion for the period of 2014 to 2019.