Last week was brutal for anyone who cares about the future of health insurance for low and average income. On Tuesday, the Federal Government’s Federal Medicaid funding portals have temporarily closed, sending doctors, patients and panic hospitals. The next day, President Trump’s candidate for the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., escaped the basic facts on the program during an audience in the Senate, despite the fact that it covers more than 70 million Americans. In the House of Representatives, during this time, legislators circulate a so-called Expenditure cuts menu It would be intestinal access to health care.
It is this last threat that could be the most devastating and the most sustainable. You see, the Trump administration is faced with a dilemma: the president has promised to extend the 2017 tax reductions (Almost half of which will go to the richest 5% of the Americans) at a high cost of 4 billions of dollars over the next decade, but many Republicans are hesitant to add to the federal deficit.
How are math? It seems that they are ready to do so at the expense of the poor and the middle class, by tearing the coverage of children’s health care, new mothers, people with disabilities and the elderly. Congress Republican leaders suggested that an option they plan to finance their tax reductions would be to reduce hundreds of billions of Medicaid; Another proposal would render the subsidies that helped the middle class families pay the premiums of the affordable care law. They clearly indicated that they wanted to finalize the legislation In the first 100 days of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
It is difficult to overestimate how catastrophic the proposed cuts would be. Medicaid alone covers More than 40% of births In the United States. Far from being a document, it is One of the most profitable insurance programs In the country, which means that there is very little fat to cut without immediately hurting people. It is because of Medicaid that children, the elderly and the disabled – groups that Make up more than 75% Among the program expenses – can see doctors and fill in prescriptions without going bankrupt.
In their menu Options, the Republicans of the Chamber propose to add work requirements to Medicaid, which would reduce the advantages to certain beneficiaries and, according to them, save billions. Supporters of work requirements argue that such measures encourage employment, but evidence watch Let them not. It is because almost all Medicaid adults who can work Already fact, or is a student, disabled or guardian for someone else. Instead, people lose access to care due to bureaucratic administrative formalities and the difficulty of proving that they are eligible. Work requirements swell bureaucracy and cause worse care for fewer people.
The Republicans also plan to distribute a final amount to the States, whatever the care that really costs. But states are already struggling with tight budgets. They do not have hidden and unexploited solutions to make health care in magic. With less money, they must refuse the coverage of more people or even less payment providers, which means that fewer doctors will see Medicaid patients, which reduces access to everyone. Twelve states have triggered books on books This could end Medicaid expansion programs or seriously reduce them if the federal government reduces funding.
Medicaid is not the only potential victim. Congress Republicans also envisage premium subsidies of the affordable care law – the same subsidies as Help working the Americans Buy private insurance at more affordable prices. Rolling down these credits, and families could see their monthly premiums soar by hundreds of dollars.
Before the ACA subsidies were extended, millions of people could not afford health coverage. Low -income families face impossible choices between paying rent or maintaining health insurance.
We must be honest about these compromises: Families lose health insurance If we reduce Medicaid or Slash Aca Premium Credits. Children go without care. Clinics and hospitals in rural areas close. People suffer.
The Republicans holding only a thin majority like a razor in the room, it would only take a handful of them to block this plan – and protect the very people who have entrusted them with their votes. After all, the long political game is questionable. Medicaid cuts would paralyze rural hospitals and patients represented by Congress Republicans who need to pass this plan. Republican politicians are increasingly claiming to defend the families of the working class, especially since more of these voters are leaning on the right. However, closing a local hospital to finance tax discounts for the best employees would be the ultimate betrayal of these voters. Recall that the last efforts of the Republicans to cancel the coverage of health care by repealing the expansion of Medicaid as well as the affordable care law in 2017 probably contributed to their loss of the majority of the chamber the following year.
I will be the first to admit that the The American health care system has serious problems – Costs from top to bottom and bad results. The way to solve these problems is not to target the most vulnerable.
Let us move away from the conversation from counting services and the fight against what really increases costs, depending on years of research: high price and inflated administration.
Avoiding Medicaid, or making it impossible for the Americans in the middle class to allow themselves ACA exchange plans, is insensitive. No parent must choose between taking a child to the emergency room and paying the invoice of the grocery store.