The shiny object that has our attention is the latest nonsense spewing from Trump’s mouth at any given time. And while the media is focus on Trump and the Republican’s talk about repealing Obamacare, a move that will take healthcare away from 32 million Americans, and while the media is captivated by Trump’s dictator-style treatment of them, the bigger story is the Republican’s radical plan to end Medicaid.
This radical plan has nothing to do with the ACA and everything to do with conservatives’ long-standing ideological goal to cap and cut federal Medicaid spending. Medicaid has been a pillar of our health-care system for 52 years and now insures nearly 1 in 5 Americans. A per-capita cap (sending a fixed amount to the states for each beneficiary) or a block grant (sending a fixed amount to the states for their entire program) would be an unprecedented abandonment of federal responsibility by giving states substantially less federal funding than they would get under Medicaid today, with the cuts growing larger each year. That would pass the buck to the states, our health-care safety net and all Americans — and deny care to the most vulnerable among us.
