Investing $5,500 per person to expand Medicaid coverage only delivers $2,200 worth of benefits that recipients were previously ineligible for.

"60% of government spending to expand Medicaid to new recipients ends up paying for care that the nominally uninsured already receive, courtesy of taxpayer dollars and hospital resources. In other words, from the recipient’s perspective the alternatives are $5,500 in cash or only about 40 percent of that — $2,200 — in health insurance benefits, on top of the care they were already receiving."