Note: All xpostfactoid subscriptions are now through Substack alone (still free), though I will continue to cross-post on this site. If you're not subscribed, please visit xpostfactoid on Substack and sign up.
 |
| A man may smile, and smile, and uninsure 20 million |
I have an op-ed up this today on nj.com decoding a statement by the famously uncommunicative Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ-7) that signals in Republican-speak that he’s on board with defunding the ACA Medicaid expansion. Below is the TLDR:
* * *
How will Republicans honor Trump’s promise not to “touch” Medicaid while reducing federal funding for the program by hundreds of billions of dollars? Leave it to purported “moderate” Rep Tom Kean Jr. (NJ-7) to channel the emerging MAGA party line. On March 6, Kean told the Record:
I support strong Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs for those who depend on them. Children, seniors, and those who are disabled rely on these crucial programs…I do not support these programs being riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse — that is a direct threat to their actual missions.
While Kean vows to protect coverage for children, seniors, and the disabled, note the group of Medicaid enrollees his vow excludes: low-income adults who are not on disability. That’s the group rendered eligible for Medicaid by the Affordable Care Act. They are the “waste” Republicans propose to uninsure to help fund the resolution’s target $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy....
It’s this “expansion” group that Republicans are likeliest to target when they write the spending bills to flesh out their budget resolution. Axios reported on March 5 that House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie “is eyeing lowering the federal share of costs, or FMAP, for the expansion population, or even a per capita cap that applied only to the expansion group.” Sources also told Axios that House Speak Mike Johnson is likely on board with such a cut. Ending the ACA’s 90% FMAP for the expansion population, a cut valued at $651 billion by the Congressional Budget Office, would make the expansion unaffordable for states and so would likely cause most of the 20 million adults currently insured through the expansion to lose coverage.
* * *
Kean is the son of a popular former moderate Republican governor and represents one of the mostly tightly contested House districts in the country. Kean Jr. brands himself as a moderate — he is a charter member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers’ Caucus — but he reliably falls in line with the Republican mainstream, which is anything but moderate. While his Republican New Jersey delegation colleague Jeff Van Drew (NJ-2) vowed after reluctantly voting for the budget resolution, “I will not cut Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid,” Kean has signaled an opposite intent.
In fact, while Kean pointedly left the ACA expansion group out of his vow of protection, Van Drew explicitly included it (my emphasis):
I have had numerous one-on-one conversations with President Trump on this matter, and he shares my philosophy—these programs must be protected for the low-income families, seniors, and individuals with disabilities who rely on them.
If the Senate passes the House budget resolution with its $880 billion in Energy & Commerce Committee cuts, or any reconciled alternative with cuts on that scale, we will see whether Van Drew will hold to his promise. Count on Kean to follow through on his implicit promise to go along with savage cuts.
* * *
Postscript: In a March 10 op-ed for Fox News, hard-core House Freedom Caucus members Andy Harris (caucus chair), Chip Roy and Eric Burlison were more explicit than Kean in throwing ACA Medicaid expansion enrollees into the waste/fraud/abuse bin. Addressing colleagues pledged to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse,” this workhouse trio urges, “We are not asking you to slash Medicaid, only turn back the clock and reverse its explosive expansion.” That is, don’t slash it, just slash it. “Nationwide,” they continue, “there are an estimated 24.6 million able-bodied, working-capable adults on Medicaid, 60% of whom report no earned income.” (According to KFF, 64% of Medicaid enrollees rendered eligible by the expansion work, and another 29% are caregivers, students, not working due to illness or disability, but never mind.)
“Medicaid was never meant to be this expansive,” they wrote. “Medicaid was intended to assist vulnerable populations like the disabled, pregnant women, children and people in poverty.” Such fact-free contempt for low-income Americans is to be expected from the Freedom Caucus. But Kean’s congruent if less explicit rhetoric makes it clear that the Republican party as a whole, with few-to-no-exceptions, is a Human Waste Caucus.
No comments:
Post a Comment