First things first. The bill is certainly big, but it has never been beautiful.
It is very difficult to know what is in it at this point, and what is not. There is more work to do to get it passed, in any event.
Now, Carolina Journal is reporting that it would result in the termination of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina.
But never fear, North Carolina conservatives. If that were to happen, the Raleigh Republicans will rush to the rescue and remedy the situation so Medicaid expansion remains in effect. You can count on it.
I doubt that if cut/requirements are put on Medicaid that there are not enough establishment Republicans’ to pass such a measure.
I guess we will need to see what happens, Fred. What is happening is a bit confusing, to say the least…
Medicaid cuts will eliminate fraud.
Any rural hospital that claims it will cause them financial ruin are admitting that their existence depends on taking fraudulently obtained money stolen from taxpayers.
A dubious business model, in my opinion.
Great points, JayCee. It is a bit discouraging to see various Republicans rallying to “save Medicaid” when, in fact, they are doing the bidding of these hospital systems.
Amen to what JayCee wrote. But there’s an important additional angle that I believe they are trying to address that is fraud right out in the open. Obama’s Medicaid expansion had the states only pay for 10% of the cost. But the states figured out how to “tax providers” for that 10%, so that it is essentially all Federal taxpayers footing the bill. Taxpayers in states that didn’t take the bait are paying for Medicaid for illegal aliens in California and NY. That’s why the expense of it is galloping so.
It’s like the states that expanded Medicaid (to cover healthy adult men!) have a credit card that all the states must pay for.
The whole purpose of Obamacare was to so pervert the medical system that people would beg for socialized medicine.
J. Sobran, when the taxpayers of one state are subsidizing another state’s Medicaid beneficiaries, it is mostly because one state has many more beneficiaries than another– whether due to illegals or lenient eligibility processes or population factors or Medicaid expansion or whatever. There are various factors that can contribute to this phenomenon.
There are now seven states that do not have Medicaid expansion. Florida is likely the largest of these in population: https://www.kff.org/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions/
No, Triad, it’s not just that. The Provider taxes allowed the Medicaid expansion States to game the system, milking more money out of the Federal govt. That was the motivation for the change in the BBB. To find a good discussion on it, you can’t do a search, but WSJ covered it.
Oh, I agree, J. Sobran. That is definitely part of the mix. Now that the bill has been passed and signed into law, it will be interesting to see what mental gymnastics the Raleigh Republicans will use to justify continuing Medicaid expansion. If I understand the situation correctly, this will invalidate Medicaid expansion in NC, so the GOP legislators now will have to make some decisions. I hope they make the right ones, but they have unfortunately been in bed with the hospital systems.