‘It’s About Who Is Not Deserving of Care’: Republicans Tear At Heart of Medicaid
Lawmakers take committee votes that bring meat cleaver to healthcare program
Congressional Republicans appear to be getting over their trepidation about approving massive cuts to Medicaid by attacking the rationale for the low-income healthcare program directly.
For months Republicans have been dancing around the notion that they intend to take a meat cleaver to slash more than $800 billion from Medicaid in order to fund further tax breaks for the nation’s ultra-wealthy and corporations.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced legislation Wednesday afternoon containing cuts to Medicaid and health care provisions — some of the most controversial and contentious provisions that will be included in the “big, beautiful bill” to enact more tax cuts.
The final vote from the committee went along party lines 30-24 after a marathon meeting that lasted more than 24 hours.
Previously shy about admitting to deep cuts in the healthcare for low-income and working Americans, Republicans are increasingly open about their plans, even attacking the entire basis for the 60-year-old Medicaid program.
The means-tested program provides healthcare for 85 million low-income and disabled people as of an estimate from 2022.
Republican Rep Mark Alford, of Missouri, took direct aim at Medicaid in an appearance on CNN.
“I know that some people in the Show Me State are concerned. But it is a show-me state, and we’re gonna ask people to show me, show me why you should be using taxpayer money for Medicaid that’s funneled from the federal government down to the state level,” he said.
However, Medicaid was set up specifically to funnel federal funds to states to administer the program in their own states.
That arrangement has existed for more than half a century under Democrats and Republicans.
Democratic Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, is a member of Energy and Commerce and participated in the long session which voted the cuts, and she boiled down the issue at hand.
“We’ve been here since 2:00 yesterday, straight, no breaks, discussing everything from the energy provisions that are being gutted to, most importantly, healthcare that is on the chopping block,” she said. “And for a lot of this discussion in the last almost 24 hours, some of the justification for these cuts have been about populations and people who are undeserving of Medicaid and healthcare, who are not worthy of it, who are fraudulent, etc. You know, the list goes on. But, you know, at the end of the day, it’s about who is not deserving of care.”
Please support our work…
Please subscribe…