Early estimates show around 40,000 Idahoans could lose Medicaid coverage and an additional 35,000 people could lose their health care insurance through the state marketplace under the sweeping budget reconciliation bill passed Thursday by Congress.<\/p>\n
Idaho\u2019s Republican congressional delegation, two senators and two House members, supported the bill.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo said Sunday on the Senate floor that the bill was \u201crooting out waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending programs, like Medicaid,\u201d a contention that health care advocates dispute.<\/p>\n
Idaho\u2019s House representatives supported both an earlier House version of the bill, the Idaho Press reported, and the updated version, created by the Senate, with about $100 billion more in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years.<\/p>\n
The changes made in the Senate version passed on Tuesday were approved by the House Thursday and signed into law by President Trump.<\/p>\n
Senate version cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid<\/p>\n
The Senate version of the budget and tax cut bill is expected to cut federal spending on Medicaid by around $1 trillion and increase the number of uninsured Americans by 11.8 million over the next 10 years, according to a preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.<\/p>\n
Erin Riley, outreach and engagement coordinator with the advocacy group Idaho Voices for Children, said the estimates in health care reductions are \u201cconservative,\u201d and many of the losses of coverage would be due to increased paperwork under new requirements in the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn general, we might see people losing their Medicaid coverage because of eligibility, \u2026 but it\u2019s a lot of paperwork,\u201d Riley said. \u201cIt\u2019s death by 1,000 cuts. So folks that would probably be eligible for traditional Medicaid, they might get caught up in that cycle of not being able to report that they are eligible. There\u2019s just a lot of red tape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the bill, able-bodied adults would be required to work or conduct \u201cwork-related activities\u201d at least 80 hours a month and prove eligibility and compliance every six months. There would be exceptions for parents of children under the age of 14.<\/p>\n
Idaho is also pursuing its own work requirement through House Bill 345 for those who are insured through Medicaid expansion\u2014a program approved by voters in 2018 to extend Medicaid eligibility to those who earned too much to qualify for traditional coverage but not enough to qualify for the premium tax credit to get health care coverage through the state marketplace.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s changes to Medicaid will need to be approved by federal authorities before going into effect.<\/p>\n
Crapo says bill protects Medicaid coverage for those it was intended for<\/p>\n
The broad-reaching bill extends tax cuts approved in 2017, during the first Trump administration, that mostly benefit wealthy people, critics and some experts say. The bill, among many provisions, also enhances funding for the military and immigration enforcement, ends renewable energy programs approved by the Biden administration, and reduces funding for some public assistance programs, such as Medicaid and food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.<\/p>\n
Crapo, who serves as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that the bill would protect benefits \u201cfor whom Medicaid was intended,\u201d including pregnant women, children, seniors and those with disabilities; Crapo didn\u2019t include in his remarks low-income residents, who were eligible after states were able to expand Medicaid following the passage of the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n
He argued that programs that enroll healthy Americans and undocumented residents have been driving up the program\u2019s costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis rate of expansion is unsustainable and puts the future of the program at risk,\u201d Crapo said on the floor.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Jim Risch\u2019s office said in a press release that one of the achievements of the bill he supported was it preserved \u201cMedicaid for vulnerable Americans by enacting common-sense reforms that prioritize resources for those who need care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Mike Simpson\u2019s office could not be immediately reached for comment on the Medicaid portion of the budget bill, but said in an emailed statement that the bill \u201cis the America-First policy agenda that Idahoans and Americans nationwide voted for in November.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher\u2019s office also could not be immediately reached for comment. He said in a press release that he voted Thursday to \u201cdeliver what effectively will result in the single largest tax cut in American history for the American People, and to bolster border and military resources to keep our communities safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Idaho Democratic Party Chair Lauren Necochea sharply criticized the votes of Idaho\u2019s congressmen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdaho Democrats believe hard work should mean a roof over your head, food on the table, healthcare you can count on, and a fair shot for your kids. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher just voted to rip that away,\u201d she said. \u201cThey backed a Republican budget that pushes the American Dream further out of reach for working people, while catering to billionaires with penthouses and private jets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senate version of bill does not extend health care premium tax credit<\/p>\n
The spending bill does not extend the enhanced premium tax credits, which were passed by Congress through the American Rescue Plan Act to reduce health care premiums through the marketplace established in the Affordable Care Act. The enhanced credits are slated to expire this year, and if Congress does not extend them, many people would see their premiums \u201cskyrocket,\u201d Riley said.<\/p>\n
On average, the tax credits have reduced premium payments by $705 a year, according to the health care policy organization KFF.<\/p>\n
Increases could be more significant for some groups.<\/p>\n
An estimate by Idaho Voices for Children shows an Idaho couple in their 60s, making $82,000 a year, would see their annual premiums rise from $6,970 to over $22,222.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith that high premium cost, we\u2019re going to see people drop off because they\u2019re just not going to be able to afford coverage,\u201d Riley said. \ufffc<\/p>\n
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early estimates show around 40,000 Idahoans could lose Medicaid coverage and an additional 35,000 people could lose their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,38880,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-51992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-state_regional","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114824558012104966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}