successfully fought back<\/a> by accusing Democratic campaigners of defaming lawmakers.\u00a0<\/p>\nSwing district Republicans in particular have spent the past two weeks seeing ads urging them to protect Medicaid and warning about the devastating impact of cuts. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Republican leaders have repeatedly said there will be no cuts to Medicare or Social Security, saying they only want to root out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump said he would not sign legislation that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it cuts it, I would not approve,\u201d Trump said in an interview with Time magazine published Friday, where he was repeatedly asked about cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would veto it, yeah. But they\u2019re not going to do that,\u201d Trump added. But the president noted he is open to measures that reduce \u201cwaste, fraud, and abuse\u201d in Medicaid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s some disagreement about what that \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse\u201d looks like.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of the more politically palatable proposals that have been floated include imposing work requirements and removing noncitizens from Medicaid, but the savings wouldn\u2019t come close to the amount needed to reach the committee\u2019s target.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some Republicans have floated the idea of rolling back the extra federal money going to states to pay for Medicaid expansion. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal government is paying 90 percent of the Medicaid expansion. What we have talked about is moving that 90 percent level of the expansion back toward the more traditional level,\u201d Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said in an interview Monday on Fox Business. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody would be kicked off Medicaid as long as governors decided they wanted to continue to fund the program,\u201d Scott said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s move that would dramatically reduce federal spending but is also politically risky. Senate Republicans \u2014 including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) \u2014 are likely to oppose it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eliminating the enhanced federal match for the Medicaid expansion population would save the federal government $626 billion over a decade if states assumed more of the expansion costs, according to an analysis by health policy nonprofit KFF.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it would also shift those costs to the states, forcing governors to make difficult decisions about how to offset costs. That would likely require some combination of budget cuts and tax increases depending on the state. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Medicaid expansion covers more than 20 million low-income adults, who would lose coverage if states were unable to pick up the expansion costs. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Twelve states also have \u201ctrigger\u201d laws in place that would automatically end expansion or require changes if the federal match rate were to drop, including eight that voted for Trump. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Scott doesn\u2019t sit on the Energy and Commerce panel, but his comments didn\u2019t come in a vacuum. Proponents of the idea argue federal Medicaid spending has grown too much and states no longer pay their fair share.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The federal government pays 90 percent of the costs for working-age adults who enroll through the expansion, a high share that the architects of ObamaCare meant to be an incentive for states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
House GOP leaders argue ObamaCare allowed states to expand Medicaid far beyond those truly in need. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have people on the program that are draining the resources, it takes it away from the people that are actually needing it the most and are intended to receive it,\u201d Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Fox News last week. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re talking about young, single mothers, down on their fortunes at a moment \u2014 the people with real disabilities, the elderly,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve got to protect and preserve that program. So we\u2019re going to preserve the integrity of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The letter from swing district Republicans did not specifically rule out rolling back the enhanced federal match, though some have said they received a commitment from Johnson that the reimbursement rate won\u2019t be lowered. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House Republicans are under the gun to get specific on how they will offset President Trump’s domestic policy agenda, and they will soon need to decide if they will touch the political stove by trying to scale back Medicaid benefits.\u00a0 Medicaid is at the heart of the GOP plan to pass a \u201cbig beautiful bill\u201d and make budget space for an extension of Trump\u2019s tax cuts. Party leaders have been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}