Trump-GOP Medicaid Cuts Already Causing Healthcare Havoc in Multiple States

from Common Dreams

The cuts to Medicaid contained in the recently passed Republican budget law are already having a damaging impact in multiple states, as both local hospitals and state governments struggle financially to make up funding gaps.

As NC Newsline reported on Wednesday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) has announced plans to cut Medicaid spending by $319 million starting on October 1, which the publication said "means the state will reduce rates by 3% to all medical providers, as well as cuts of 8-10% for inpatient and residential services and 10% for behavioral therapy and analysis for patients with autism."

NCDHHS spokesperson Summer Tonizzo did not sugarcoat the impact that the cuts would have on services for Medicaid patients in her state. She said that services including hospice care, behavioral health long-term care, and nursing home services could see reimbursement cuts significantly steeper than 3%.

"These reductions may cause some providers to stop accepting Medicaid patients, as the lowered rates could make it financially unsustainable to continue offering care," she said...

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Trump Agriculture Chief Mocked for Suggesting Medicaid Recipients Could Replace Deported Farm Workers

from Common Dreams

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday drew instant jeers when she defended the mass deportation of immigrant farm laborers and suggested that they could be replaced by Americans who are currently enrolled in Medicaid.

While speaking in Washington, D.C., Rollins declared that there would be "no amnesty" for immigrant farm workers despite President Donald Trump saying just days ago that he was willing to let these workers stay at their jobs.

Instead, Rollins said that the mass deportations of farm laborers would "continue in a strategic way" and administration policy would be to "move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which, again, with 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do fairly quickly."

The idea that there are 34 million "able-bodied adults" on Medicaid who can be easily relocated to work picking crops is pure fantasy. In the first place, an estimated 64% of American adults who receive Medicaid already work, and most of those adult recipients who don't have jobs are either primary caregivers, are attending school, or have an illness or disability that prevents them from working.

A report released earlier this year authored by Economic Policy Institute economist Hilary Wething also poked holes in the narrative that millions of "able-bodied adults without dependents" ("ABAWDs") were sponging off the system...

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Don’t rely on Medicaid? Tax bill will drive up costs to your healthcare to

from al Jazeera

United States President Donald Trump’s signature piece of budget legislation, the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, will likely raise healthcare costs, experts have said. While the Medicaid cuts will directly impact those who depend on the programme, the consequences will extend to others as well.

The 869-page bill, which includes roughly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade, passed in the House along party lines, with only two Republicans – Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania – breaking ranks. It will be signed into law by Trump on Friday...

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GOP's Latest Pitch for Gutting Medicaid and Food Aid? 'Well, We All Are Going to Die'

 ('And if the useless eaters, the Takers, go first, it makes things a lot nicer for us Makers out here, right?')

from Common Dreams

Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst on Friday brushed off her constituents' concerns about the life-threatening consequences of her party's proposed cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, telling a town hall audience, "Well, we all are going to die."

Ernst's remark came after a person in the crowd warned that "people will die" if the safety net cuts proposed in the House-passed budget reconciliation package become law.

The Iowa senator began by waving away the crowd's response, saying, "People are not... " After trailing off, Ernst said facetiously that "we all are going to die."

"So, for heaven's sakes," she added with a smile...

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Policy Expert Details Cruelty and Pointlessness of GOP's Medicaid Work Requirements

from Common Dreams

Days after Trump Cabinet officials championed work requirements in the pages of The New York Times, a progressive policy expert wrote in that same newspaper on Friday that such mandates—particularly for Medicaid recipients—are "cruel and pointless," potentially stripping critical benefits from millions of people through no fault of their own.

The GOP proposal, which advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this week, would require many Medicaid recipients to prove that they worked or did some related activity for at least 80 hours per month. Republicans are also seeking to dramatically expand work requirements for recipients of federal nutrition assistance.

Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, argued in his Times op-ed that "imposing work requirements on Medicaid is a fundamentally misguided policy," particularly given that "it is employers, not workers, who make hiring, firing, and scheduling decisions."

"Last year, over 20 million workers were laid off or fired at some point from their jobs," Bruenig observed. "Many of those workers ended up losing not just all of their income but also their employer-sponsored health care. Medicaid is supposed to provide a backstop for these workers, but if we tie eligibility to work, they will find themselves locked out of the healthcare system because of decisions their employers made, often for reasons beyond their control."...

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What is in the just-passed House Republican budget bill? What to know

(Massive tax breaks for the wealthy, crippling austerity for the poor. The Glorious Gilded Age Revolution has begun)

from USA Today

After a long day of arm-twisting and internal party clashes, House Republicans on Tuesday narrowly passed their plan to advance President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.

The GOP plan was passed by a vote of 217-215, after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had to convince several Republican holdouts including Reps. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Warren Davidson of Ohio to come on board with the proposal.

After the House plan passed on Tuesday night, Trump congratulated Johnson.

"Big First Step Win for Speaker Mike Johnson, and AMERICA. Now let’s start to BALANCE THE BUDGET. IT CAN BE DONE!!!" he wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning.

The House's plan would set up a massive reconciliation bill that would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts and implement new ones at a cost of $4.5 trillion over the next decade.

It would also allocate $300 billion for spending on defense and border security, raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion over two years, and add almost $3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

The budget blueprint would also direct multiple committees to cut billions of dollars, including $880 billion in cuts spearheaded by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Because Trump has ruled out cuts to Medicare and Social Security, budget experts say that may necessitate cuts to Medicaid, which is under the committee's jurisdiction...

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She Interrupted a Town-Hall Meeting and Was Dragged Out by Private Security

from the NYT

The woman had been heckling speakers and speaking out at a town-hall meeting hosted by local Republicans in Coeur d’Alene, a small city in northern Idaho. The local sheriff asked her to leave, even pulling at her arm at one point and threatening to arrest her, according to videos from the event that have been published online.

Next, men wearing black jackets, and not known to be affiliated with local law enforcement, descended upon the woman, pulled her off the chair and to the floor while she cried out, asking who the men were, using an expletive. They eventually dragged her out of the auditorium.

The woman, Teresa Borrenpohl, a former Democratic candidate for state office in Idaho, argued that everyone should be allowed to speak at a local political event. But organizers of the meeting with state legislators, which was hosted by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, said that she repeatedly refused to follow the rules...

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Liberal Redneck - On Gutting Medicaid and Food Stamps to Cover More Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

from Trae Crowder

 

House Passes G.O.P. Budget Teeing Up Enormous Tax and Spending Cuts

from the NYT

The House on Tuesday narrowly passed a Republican budget resolution that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $2 trillion reduction in federal spending over a decade, clearing the way for major elements of President Trump’s domestic agenda.

The nearly party-line vote of 217 to 215 teed up a bitter fight within the G.O.P. over which federal programs to slash to partially finance a huge tax cut that would provide its biggest benefits to rich Americans.

It came after a head-spinning hour in which Republican leaders tried to put down a revolt among conservatives who wanted deeper spending cuts, failed to do so, canceled the budget vote and then reversed course minutes later and summoned lawmakers to call the roll.

The chaotic scene underscored the unwieldy path House Republicans have ahead of them as they try to push through Mr. Trump’s domestic policy agenda through Congress over the objections of Democrats...

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BREAKING: MASS CHAOS AS TRUMP FREEZES ALL MEDICAID SPENDING!

from Secular Talk