Over the next few weeks, Republicans in Congress will have to put pen to paper and codify their scheme to use massive Medicaid cuts to bankroll tax breaks for the wealthy. Their plan could force seniors out of nursing homes, jeopardize the health care of half of all children in America, and take lifesaving care away from people with disabilities. With nowhere left to hide, key Republicans are scrambling as they feel the consequences of how cruel and unpopular their plan is.
Poll after poll after poll finds a majority of voters, including most Republican voters, oppose any cuts to Medicaid. Facing continued pushback from constituents and widespread public outcry, Republicans are feeling the heat for their decision to target the nation’s largest health care provider just to fund tax breaks for the wealthy. Taking a dollar from Americans’ health care to hand a dollar to already-rich people is unfair and indefensible. The GOP is prioritizing billionaires and big companies over everyday Americans, and the fight to stop them is just getting started.
Politico: ‘It’s a dangerous situation’: GOP Rep. with most Medicaid constituents sends a warning
- “What can pass the Senate? Don’t ask a bunch of us in the House just to vote for something that will fail in the Senate and or get vetoed by the President on things that we’re very, very concerned with,” he said. “It’s a dangerous situation,” he added, referring to President Donald Trump’s vague pledges to not cut Medicaid, save for changes addressing waste, fraud and abuse.
- Valadao is representative of a broader bloc of House Republicans worried about the potential impacts of deep Medicaid cuts on patients and hospitals — and the potential political blowback. He also raised concerns about other GOP proposals to push federal food aid costs onto states – which, paired with changes to Medicaid, could hit millions of low-income Americans.
- Valadao lost his seat in Congress in 2018 after voting to repeal the Democrats’ 2010 health law, and has treaded lightly on the issue ever since.
- But Valadao is leaving the door open to capping the overall funding for certain beneficiaries in the 41 states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, like California, while also creating a “rainy day fund” for individual states. “I still think $500 billion is a lot, depending on how they score things,” Valadao said, but added the cost estimate “might be all foo-foo numbers just to make people happy.”
Fox News: Trump slams Republican ‘grandstanders’ opposing budget bill, predicts massive US tax increases if it fails
- [President Trump] said his bill has “100% just about Republican support,” adding it “would be nice if we had just a couple of Democrats just to make sure, because, you know, every once in a while, you have a grandstander Republican. We have some grandstanders.” As the crowd booed, Trump noted there were “not many” Republicans opposing his bill, but he urged viewers to “remember who those grandstanders were and vote them the hell out of office.” Trump cautioned that if the bill fails, the U.S. is “going to have the highest tax increase in history instead of the greatest tax cut in history.”
Politico: House Republicans raise new Medicaid proposal to offset Trump’s megabill
- According to four Republicans who were present for the meeting of GOP members of Energy and Commerce — convened to finalize their panel’s portion of the party’s megabill — lawmakers discussed at length a new version of a plan to place so-called “per capita caps” on Medicaid funding to certain beneficiaries in states that have expanded the program under the Affordable Care Act.
- The emerging plan would still risk Medicaid health care services for millions of low-income people by shifting the costs of any additional coverage beyond the federal allotment to states as Republicans hunt for savings to pay for the party-line package to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Politico: E&C Chair Guthrie to huddle with Republicans on Medicaid
- The meeting [with key House Republicans wary of major cuts] is being scheduled amid growing skepticism about how the committee plans to hit its savings target of $880 billion to help finance the megabill central to President Donald Trump’s agenda without catastrophic cuts to Medicaid.
- “My sense is that would be a cut, and I’m not in favor of that,” Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) told reporters Tuesday. “But I do want to hear more from the Guthries of the world who have studied this issue for years.”
The Hill: GOP wrestles with disagreements over Medicaid cuts
- “We’re still having discussions on FMAP and per-capita allotments. Those are the biggest discussions we have to have,” Guthrie told reporters Tuesday. “If we can get there, that’s what we’re looking at.” Guthrie was referring to proposals to either lower the federal government’s 90 percent matching reimbursement rate for expansion states — known as FMAP — or to cap federal spending on a per beneficiary basis.
Axios Pro: Health Care: Moderates’ Medicaid pushback
- Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said he would also look at any cap proposal but wants details such as how federal payments would increase over time to account for the cost of care. “You really have to know the rate that they are going to use, what kind of growth are they going to allow,” he said.
Semafor: Republican senators pan proposed House changes to Medicaid as ‘cutting benefits’
- Sens. Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Josh Hawley of Missouri both warned in interviews that proposals to cut the federal government’s share of the costs in states that have expanded Medicaid, and to otherwise cap Medicaid expansion spending, could lead to coverage losses. Moreno bluntly told Semafor that both ideas amount to “cutting benefits.” “We don’t need to cut benefits. And it actually really infuriates me to hear people here talking about that, because it stresses people out. This is life and death for them,” Moreno said.