The Trump administration is reportedly planning to intensify its assault on Medicaid by granting certain states permission to convert federal funding for the program into block grants, a move critics slammed as a cruel and likely illegal attack on vulnerable people.
Politico reported Thursday that the plan, which could be finalized as early as next week, would allow the 37 states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to seek waivers to convert funding into fixed sums that could limit states’ flexibility to increase spending in response to public need.
Block-granting Medicaid is a longtime Republican goal dating back at least to the Reagan administration. The Trump administration’s proposal has been in the works for over a year.
“In the same week President Trump said cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are on the table, we now learn that his administration is set to propose benefit-slashing block grants on Medicaid expansion.”
—Brad Woodhouse, Protect Our Care
Bruce Bartlett, an architect of former President Ronald Reagan’s right-wing economic agenda who left the GOP in 2006, tweeted Thursday that “block grants are just a Republican trick to slash spending without appearing to do so.”
“Money is fungible,” Bartlett said. “Medicaid funding will be used to pay for other programs or even to finance tax cuts.”
News of the plan, led by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, comes just days after President Donald Trump threatened to slash Medicare and Social Security funding “at some point” should he win reelection in November.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT