Republicans Have A New Plot To Gut Medicaid And They Don't Need Congress
By ALICE OLLSTEIN Published AUGUST 17, 2017 6:00 AM
A wave of Republican-controlled states are petitioning the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for permission to enact measures that will knock more people off Medicaid and the Trump administration has signaled they will give a green light to these efforts.
After the collapse of Obamacare repeal in Congress, which would have cut hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of people from Medicaid–the public health insurance program for the poor–red states and their allies in the Trump administration are preparing to use a powerful administrative tool as a backdoor route to that same goal.
Over the past few months, after Trump’s HHS signaled openness to granting these Medicaid waivers, nearly a dozen Republican-controlled states have submitted or are preparing to submit requests that they openly acknowledge will lead to fewer people being covered as a result. In those so-called waiver requests, some states are seeking to impose work requirements and drug tests on the low-income population that depends on Medicaid, while others are proposing cuts in coverage for vision, dental care, and non-emergency medical transportation, lifetime limits, defunding of women’s health clinics, and requiring people below the federal poverty line to pay insurance premiums.
The governors gunning for the waivers say it will save millions in taxpayer dollars and shore up the Medicaid program. But former HHS officials and health law experts tell TPM that these proposals—which HHS has all but promised to approve—undermine the purpose of Medicaid and could open the Trump administration up to lawsuits in the months ahead.
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