West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey is amongst 19 Republican governors of states that stand to lose federal Medicaid funds if Congress passes the tax invoice with proposed cuts to this system.
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The final time a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump moved to slash Medicaid spending, in 2017, a key political power stood of their means: GOP governors.
Now, as Congress steamrolls towards passing historic Medicaid cuts of about $1 trillion over 10 years via Trump’s tax and spending laws, crimson state governors are saying little publicly about what it does to well being care — at the same time as they face reductions that can punch multibillion-dollar holes of their states’ budgets.
Medicaid, a program collectively run by states and the federal authorities, covers greater than 70 million low-income or disabled individuals, together with practically half of the nation’s youngsters. Republicans say the $900 billion-a-year program was allowed to develop too giant below Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden by including nondisabled adults they are saying do not deserve authorities help, they usually have lengthy sought to scale it again.
A number of the largest well being cuts within the laws Trump calls the “One Large Stunning Invoice” are achieved via new insurance policies that would scale back enrollment by imposing extra paperwork calls for on enrollees, together with a requirement that many show they’re working. These insurance policies would have an effect on solely states that expanded Medicaid to extra low-income individuals below the Inexpensive Care Act.
Nineteen of these states are led by Republican governors. Their silence on the invoice’s well being measures is giving political cowl to GOP lawmakers from their states as they search to chop Medicaid protection for hundreds of thousands of people that gained it throughout the final decade.
KFF Well being Information contacted all 19 governors for touch upon the laws’s Medicaid cuts. Solely six responded. Most mentioned they backed imposing a piece requirement on grownup Medicaid enrollees.
“Implementing work necessities for able-bodied adults is an effective and needed reform in order that Medicaid is getting used for short-term help and never a everlasting entitlement,” mentioned Drew Galang, a spokesperson for Gov. Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia.
“Governor Rhoden helps workforce participation as a requirement of Medicaid growth eligibility,” mentioned Josie Harms, a spokesperson for South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, including that congressional lawmakers have the governor’s help: “South Dakota has a superb federal delegation, and Governor Rhoden trusts them to combat for South Dakota’s priorities whereas delivering on President Trump’s guarantees.”
In an indication of how the political winds have modified, not one of the governors mentioned something concerning the laws’s crackdown on one other vital lower, to supplier taxes — a instrument that just about all of their states use to assist pay their share of Medicaid and achieve extra funds from the federal authorities. That change is predicted to value states billions.
A bipartisan problem not
In distinction to the radio silence from GOP governors, Democratic governors have campaigned towards the megabill for weeks.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on the social media platform X that Trump and congressional Republicans have been deceptive People by saying they have been chopping solely waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
“They’re speeding to kick lots of of hundreds of Pennsylvanians off their healthcare — and mendacity about it,” he posted. “The injury it will do right here in Pennsylvania and throughout America is staggering and shall be felt for years to return.”
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul on July 1 charged that Trump’s laws would devastate hospitals and will result in greater than 34,000 job cuts in her state.
“The collective affect of the GOP reconciliation invoice in Washington, D.C., might power hospitals to curtail critically wanted providers resembling maternity care and psychiatric remedy, to not point out to downsize operations, and even shut totally,” she mentioned in a press release.
In 2017, the refrain was bipartisan, as Republican governors in Ohio, Nevada, and Massachusetts spoke out towards chopping Medicaid. Trump’s invoice to repeal a lot of the Inexpensive Care Act and roll again its Medicaid growth narrowly failed within the Senate.
“It has been shocking that red-state governors, significantly these in Medicaid growth states, have not spoken out towards Medicaid cuts,” mentioned Larry Levitt, govt vp for well being coverage at KFF, a well being data nonprofit that features KFF Well being Information. “Republican governors have been a potent political power within the failed 2017 effort to repeal and substitute the ACA, together with Medicaid growth.”
What’s modified since 2017, coverage specialists say, is that there are fewer average Republican governors, and GOP state executives who advocated for Medicaid growth over a decade in the past are not in workplace.
Moreover, seven of the then-red states that expanded Medicaid did so through poll initiative, principally over opposition from their governors.
Actually, the Medicaid work requirement is backed by many Republican governors, even when it means much less federal Medicaid cash and results in fewer individuals coated.
A number of states, together with Arkansas and Ohio, have already handed state legal guidelines to implement a requirement that adults enrolled below the ACA’s Medicaid growth work, volunteer, go to highschool, or take part in job coaching. Most states have but to deliver work requirement packages to fruition as a result of they’re ready for federal authorities approval.
Charles “Chip” Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, a commerce group of investor-owned hospitals, mentioned that whereas fewer governors have engaged publicly in making an attempt to dam Medicaid cuts below the invoice, federal lawmakers are listening to from legislators of their states.
A political dilemma for Republican governors is that, in contrast to in 2017, the invoice earlier than Congress shouldn’t be laws aimed expressly at repealing Obamacare. Its scope is broader than well being care, and would prolong lots of Trump’s tax cuts, and direct billions in new spending towards border safety, immigration enforcement, and the navy, whereas additionally chopping well being care spending.
“It is like enjoying multidimensional chess relatively than specializing in one problem,” Kahn mentioned.
Larry Jacobs, director of the Middle for the Examine of Politics and Governance on the College of Minnesota, mentioned some Republican governors could have expressed issues privately to their states’ GOP senators however aren’t talking out publicly for concern of drawing Trump’s wrath.
“Why are they being cagey? Trump and never eager to be ‘Liz Cheney’d,'” Jacobs mentioned, referring to the Republican former Wyoming lawmaker whom Trump helped oust after she served as vice chair of an inquiry into his makes an attempt to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
Strolling political tightropes
The political peril Republican lawmakers face in publicly difficult Trump stays express. On June 29, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) introduced he wouldn’t run for reelection after he voiced issues concerning the invoice and the president threatened to again a main challenger. Tillis was one in every of three GOP senators to vote towards it on July 1, although it nonetheless narrowly handed.
Along with the work requirement, the largest Medicaid cuts within the invoice stem from its restrictions on supplier taxes — levies that states impose on hospitals, nursing houses, and different well being care establishments to assist improve their federal reimbursement. A lot of the extra cash is then returned to the well being care suppliers within the type of greater funds for his or her Medicaid sufferers.
The observe, which has been adopted in each state however Alaska, has been criticized by some Beltway Republicans as “cash laundering” — although the taxes are accepted by state lawmakers and the federal Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers and have been allowed below federal regulation for many years.
The Senate invoice would restrict the cash states might increase — a transfer that will imply billions in funding cuts to states and their hospitals.
The states with Republican governors that expanded Medicaid are Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Utah.
One of many governors who expressed issues about repealing the Obamacare Medicaid growth in 2017 was Jim Justice of West Virginia, a Democrat on the time.
In a June 2017 letter to West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, Justice wrote: “Since so lots of our individuals rely on Medicaid, any lower to Medicaid would destroy households in West Virginia.” He added that “the implications could be past catastrophic.”
On July 1, Justice — elected to the Senate as a Republican final 12 months — voted for Trump’s megabill, together with its Medicaid cuts.
“The Senator believes this invoice strikes a very good stability between defending essentially the most weak and those that depend on this system whereas rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse to make sure this system is run effectively for these deserving,” William O’Grady, a Justice spokesperson, mentioned in an electronic mail Wednesday.
KFF Well being Information correspondent Arielle Zionts contributed to this report.
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working packages at KFF.
