Today’s Action: Spread the news on Trump’s Medicaid Spending Caps

With a coronavirus outbreak underway, you would hope the president wouldn’t simultaneously attempt to cut funding from the largest healthcare provider in the country. But it’s Trump, so…he is.

The Trump Administration ran a Medicaid ‘field study’ in 2018, implementing work requirements in Arkansas to receive Medicaid coverage. The result: 18,000 low-income individuals getting knocked off insurance in one year, just in one state

And with that attempt to keep poor people away from doctors locked in the courts, he’s pushing forward with a new scheme at a national level: allowing states to cap Medicaid spending under the guise of “block grants.”

Medicaid covers 71 million Americans. And dressed up in whatever bogus language he and his cronies are using (ex: “the Healthy Adult Opportunity”), the policy changes essentially boil down to one thing: remove as many people as possible, and spend less on those they can’t kick off.

These changes to Medicaid could hurt millions of people – and we need to get the word out! Send a letter to your favorite newspaper about Trump’s Medicaid block grant funding program, urging your reps and your community to oppose it.

Under the proposed changes, the states would use the spending caps to determine in advance how much they’ll spend on Medicaid for the year…but rue the day a recession sends surges of unanticipated enrollees its way, as the state would not have the funding to cover the adjustment.

Drug coverage is also at risk, as the policy will allow states to exclude certain drugs from coverage. States would also have the option to choose who exactly they cover. And certain standard Medicaid benefits like long-term care and transportation to medical treatment would be potentially out the window.

Needless to say, many Republicans are hangry for this policy to get enacted – the sooner to blame the poor for being poor the better. But other Republicans have resisted changes to the ACA and Medicaid in the past, thanks to their enrolled voters, and we need them to once again join with Democrats to keep these lifesaving entitlements intact (or improved, but one battle at a time).

Write a letter to your local newspaper’s editor, encouraging your community and Members of Congress to oppose Trump’s changes to Medicaid – tell them to say NO to state spending caps, which will reduce the quality of care and hurt states’ ability to provide coverage during recessions.