Senate Republicans propose deeper Medicaid cuts. Here's what that means.

[Miles Archer]

Senate Republicans propose deeper Medicaid cuts. Here’s what that means.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/senate-republicans-propose-deeper-medicaid-021551180.html

Last month, House Republicans passed massive tax-and-spending legislation projected to result in 7.8 million fewer Medicaid enrollees. The Senate Finance Committee’s revisions to the bill released Monday could prompt even steeper coverage losses, sharply reining in a Medicaid financing maneuver that hospital groups say would slash payments to their facilities.

“The Senate just made a bad bill worse,” Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, said in a statement. “Rural communities would take the hardest hit, with struggling hospitals compelled to face difficult decisions about what services to cut.”

Rural areas disproportionately rely on Medicaid, and their hospitals are often the first backstop for patients without health coverage. Hospital networks said they might reduce pediatric, maternity or behavioral health services; end telehealth programs; close rural facilities; or enact layoffs if the Medicaid cuts become law, in a recent member survey by the American Medical Group Association before the Senate bill was released.

These changes would partly be the result of caps on provider taxes, an unusual example of a tax many hospitals are happy to pay. States charge extra taxes to medical providers - mainly hospitals, nursing homes and facilities for people with intellectual disabilities - and in return give the providers higher Medicaid payments. That brings in more federal matching funds, which are pegged to state payments.

[Joinfortmill]

1. Republican is now a 'dirty word' to most of the country.

[Miles Archer]

2. Wait until the general public pays attention to what's in that bill

I take a lot for granted. I post here, political posts are part of what I do on Facebook, as well as Bluesky. I'd say I'm "politically active." I know a lot of people who just turn their heads the other way and go about their business. Some of them are Fox addicts, and reject anything that doesn't come from them or Newsmax. Others are exhausted by Trump and just want to go to their happy place. I personally think we'd be having "NO KINGS" events 7 days a week if more people had been paying attention to this abomination of a bill on its various steps along the way.

And the irony is that most of the "objections" from Republicans have been based on the cuts to the social safety net. Veterans programs, and more have "not been severe enough."

[oasis]

3. Dirty stinking rats.