Sober Second Thoughts From the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body
If you thought the problem with the AHCA was that the cuts to Medicaid weren’t savage enough, you’ll be pleasantly surprised:
A leading option in the Senate’s ObamaCare repeal-and-replace debate is to make even deeper cuts to Medicaid spending than the bill passed by the House, according to lobbyists and aides.
The proposal would start out the growth rate for a new cap on Medicaid spending at the same levels as the House bill, but then drop to a lower growth rate that would cut spending more, known as CPI-U, starting in 2025, the sources said.
That proposal has been sent to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for analysis, a Senate GOP aide said.
In addition to being a greedy attack on the poor, this is also a greedy attack on the disabled:
Most people think of Medicaid as a program for able-bodied, non-elderly adults and their children ― a form of “welfare” that some Americans tolerate and others resent because they think, rightly or wrongly, that it’s subsidizing people too lazy to work. But one-third of the program’s spending is on people with disabilities. Although they account for a much smaller fraction of Medicaid enrollees, there are roughly 9 million people in this category, and almost all have unusually severe health care needs. On average, Medicaid spends more than four times on somebody with disabilities than it does on an able-bodied adult.
As always, the lesson is that Hillary Clinton used a private email server.