Washington Post: GOP health-care talks center on stark question: Help vulnerable Americans or help the rich?
The GOP clearly does not want to prioritize vulnerable Americans over helping the rich, as their approved health care plan gave the top 0.1% huge tax breaks. Their bill, which was drafted completely in the dark, cut Medicaid funding by $772 billion and would leave 22 million Americans without health care. In response to the Congressional Budget Office saying 22 million Americans will lose coverage, the Senate has decided to revise their bill and it’s up to them to decide if they’re going to continue to prioritize the top 0.1% or if they’re going to choose the correct path and prioritize the vulnerable.
By 2036, the new analysis said, the government would spend 35 percent less on Medicaid than under the current law, compared with a 26 percent decrease in the first decade.
The updated Medicaid estimate from the CBO, showing how spending would shrink over the next 20 years, underscored the extent to which McConnell’s plan would squeeze the long-standing public insurance program.
The current draft already cuts $772 billion over 10 years from Medicaid, which covers poor and disabled Americans as well as the elderly, children and pregnant women.
The updated analysis, requested by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other Senate Democrats, calculated the effects of pegging the program’s inflation rate to the consumer price index for urban consumers, as opposed to the current practice of following the medical inflation rate.
According to analysts at the health consulting firm Avalere and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, this would translate into a cut of at least $330 billion in 2036.
The report suggested that as the spigot of federal funding constricted over time, “there would be increasing pressure on more states” to cut costs or commit more of their own money to serve their Medicaid populations.
