The final time a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump moved to slash Medicaid spending, in 2017, a key political power stood of their method: GOP governors.
Now, as Congress steamrolls towards passing historic Medicaid cuts of about $1 trillion over 10 years by means of Trump’s tax and spending laws, red-state governors are saying little publicly about what it does to well being care — at the same time as they face reductions that can punch multibillion-dollar holes of their states’ budgets.
Medicaid, a program collectively run by states and the federal authorities, covers greater than 70 million low-income or disabled individuals, together with almost half of the nation’s youngsters. Republicans say the $900 billion-a-year program was allowed to develop too giant beneath Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden by including nondisabled adults they are saying don’t deserve authorities help, they usually have lengthy sought to scale it again.
A few of the greatest well being cuts within the laws Trump calls the “One Huge Stunning Invoice” are achieved by means of new insurance policies that would cut back enrollment by imposing extra paperwork calls for on enrollees, together with a requirement that many show they’re working. These insurance policies would have an effect on solely states that expanded Medicaid to extra low-income individuals beneath the Reasonably priced Care Act.
Nineteen of these states are led by Republican governors. Their silence on the invoice’s well being measures is giving political cowl to GOP lawmakers from their states as they search to chop Medicaid protection for tens of millions of people that gained it inside the final decade.
KFF Well being Information contacted all 19 governors for touch upon the laws’s Medicaid cuts. Solely six responded. Most stated they backed imposing a piece requirement on grownup Medicaid enrollees.
“Implementing work necessities for able-bodied adults is an efficient and crucial reform in order that Medicaid is getting used for non permanent help and never a everlasting entitlement,” stated Drew Galang, a spokesperson for Gov. Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia.
“Governor Rhoden helps workforce participation as a requirement of Medicaid growth eligibility,” stated Josie Harms, a spokesperson for South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, including that congressional lawmakers have the governor’s help: “South Dakota has a wonderful federal delegation, and Governor Rhoden trusts them to battle for South Dakota’s priorities whereas delivering on President Trump’s guarantees.”
In an indication of how the political winds have modified, not one of the governors stated something about one other of the laws’s important cuts, to supplier taxes — a device that almost all of their states use to assist pay their share of Medicaid and achieve extra funds from the federal authorities. That change is anticipated to price states billions.
No Longer a Bipartisan Challenge
In distinction to the radio silence from GOP governors, Democratic governors have campaigned in opposition to the megabill for weeks.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on the social platform X that Trump and congressional Republicans have been deceptive People by saying they have been slicing solely waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
“They’re speeding to kick a whole bunch of 1000’s of Pennsylvanians off their healthcare — and mendacity about it,” he posted. “The injury this can do right here in Pennsylvania and throughout America is staggering and might be felt for years to return.”
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul on July 1 charged that Trump’s laws would devastate hospitals and will result in greater than 34,000 job cuts in her state.
“The collective impression of the GOP reconciliation invoice in Washington, D.C., may power hospitals to curtail critically wanted providers comparable to maternity care and psychiatric therapy, to not point out to downsize operations, and even shut solely,” she stated in an announcement.
In 2017, the refrain was bipartisan, as Republican governors in Ohio, Nevada, and Massachusetts spoke out in opposition to slicing Medicaid. Trump’s invoice to repeal a lot of the Reasonably priced Care Act and roll again its Medicaid growth narrowly failed within the Senate.
“It’s been stunning that red-state governors, notably these in Medicaid growth states, haven’t spoken out in opposition to Medicaid cuts,” stated Larry Levitt, govt vp for well being coverage at KFF, a well being data nonprofit that features KFF Well being Information. “Republican governors have been a potent political power within the failed 2017 effort to repeal and change the ACA, together with Medicaid growth.”
What’s modified since 2017, coverage consultants say, is that there are fewer reasonable Republican governors, and GOP state executives who advocated for Medicaid growth over a decade in the past are now not in workplace.
Moreover, seven of the then-red states that expanded Medicaid did so by way of poll initiative, largely over opposition from their governors.
Actually, the Medicaid work requirement is backed by many Republican governors, even when it means much less federal Medicaid cash and results in fewer individuals lined.
A number of states, together with Arkansas and Ohio, have already handed state legal guidelines to implement a requirement that adults enrolled beneath the ACA’s Medicaid growth work, volunteer, go to highschool, or take part in job coaching. Most states have but to deliver work requirement applications to fruition as a result of they’re ready for federal authorities approval.
Charles “Chip” Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, a commerce group of investor-owned hospitals, stated that whereas fewer governors have engaged publicly in attempting to dam Medicaid cuts beneath the invoice, federal lawmakers are listening to from legislators of their states.
A political dilemma for Republican governors is that, not like in 2017, the invoice earlier than Congress will not be laws aimed expressly at repealing Obamacare. With a scope broader than well being care, it could prolong lots of Trump’s tax cuts and direct billions in new spending towards border safety, immigration enforcement, and the navy, whereas additionally slicing well being care spending.
“It’s like enjoying multidimensional chess moderately than specializing in one problem,” Kahn stated.
Larry Jacobs, director of the Heart for the Research of Politics and Governance on the College of Minnesota, stated some Republican governors could have expressed issues privately to their states’ GOP senators however are usually not talking out publicly for concern of drawing Trump’s wrath.
“Why are they being cagey? Trump and never desirous to be ‘Liz Cheney’d,’” Jacobs stated, referring to the Republican former Wyoming lawmaker whom Trump helped oust after she served as vice chair of an inquiry into his makes an attempt to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
Strolling Political Tightropes
The political peril Republican lawmakers face in publicly difficult Trump stays express. On June 29, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) introduced he wouldn’t run for reelection after he voiced issues in regards to the invoice and the president threatened to again a main challenger. Tillis was one among three GOP senators to vote in opposition to it on July 1, although it nonetheless narrowly handed.
Along with the work requirement, the most important Medicaid cuts within the invoice stem from its restrictions on supplier taxes — levies that states impose on hospitals, nursing houses, and different well being care establishments to assist enhance their federal reimbursement. A lot of the extra cash is then returned to the well being care suppliers within the type of greater funds for his or her Medicaid sufferers.
The apply, which has been adopted in each state however Alaska, has been criticized by some Beltway Republicans as “cash laundering” — regardless that the taxes are permitted by state lawmakers and the federal Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers and have been allowed beneath federal legislation for many years.
The Senate invoice would restrict the cash states may elevate — a transfer that may imply billions in funding cuts to states and their hospitals.
The states with Republican governors that expanded Medicaid are Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Utah.
One of many governors who expressed issues about repealing the Obamacare Medicaid growth in 2017 was Jim Justice of West Virginia, a Democrat on the time.
In a June 2017 letter to West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, Justice wrote: “Since so lots of our individuals depend on Medicaid, any reduce to Medicaid would destroy households in West Virginia.” He added that “the implications can be past catastrophic.”
On July 1, Justice — elected to the Senate as a Republican final 12 months — voted for Trump’s megabill, together with its Medicaid cuts.
“The Senator believes this invoice strikes a great stability between defending probably the most weak and people who depend on this system whereas rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse to make sure this system is run effectively for these deserving,” William O’Grady, a Justice spokesperson, stated in an e-mail July 2.
KFF Well being Information correspondent Arielle Zionts contributed to this report.
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working applications at KFF—an impartial supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Be taught extra about KFF.
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