They had a lot better story to tell than I thought.” “I was generally much more favorably impressed than I expected to be. “I definitely feel more positive about it,” he said. Haslam, whose state did not enter into the expanded Medicaid program, nonetheless had some concerns about the Senate legislation’s impact on Tennessee, but he said he came away feeling better about the bill after hearing from administration officials. He named a Kentucky small-business owner who he said was struggling under increasing premiums, a disabled Ohio woman who he said lost her plan and doctor, and a Wisconsin grandmother who he said had to choose between paying for coverage and buying Christmas presents.Īt least one Republican governor may have been swayed by the pitch: Tennessee Gov. In a departure from the president, who often has seemed to have little grasp of health policy details and the effect of them on everyday people, Pence delivered a speech in which he recounted stories of individuals he has met across the country who he said have been harmed by the ACA. But Trump officials are arguing that the administration can cushion the bill’s financial blow to the states through a combination of legislative provisions and administrative measures. Under the Senate bill, roughly 15 million Medicaid recipients would lose coverage within a decade, according to the CBO, which is expected to provide an updated score on the revised legislation next week. Pence, a former governor of Indiana, expanded Medicaid in his state. By 2036, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the government would spend 35 percent less on Medicaid than under the current law.Īmong the GOP senators who have questioned aspects of the Senate proposal, at least half a dozen hail from Medicaid-expansion states. The Senate Republican proposal would cut $772 billion from Medicaid over the next decade by phasing out the expansion population, and it makes even deeper cuts starting in 2025. Moreover, the expansion population is not solely composed of able-bodied beneficiaries: It includes low-income parents and childless adults, some of whom have chronic illnesses. “That waiting list is nothing new, and to attribute it to expansion is absurd,” said Families USA’s senior director of health policy, Eliot Fishman. Kasich spokesman Jon Keeling said in an interview that Pence’s suggestion that 60,000 disabled Ohioans remain on waiting lists “is not accurate,” adding that to suggest Medicaid expansion hurt the state’s developmentally disabled “system is false, as it is just the opposite of what actually happened.” States have long had waiting lists for these services, and the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation’s executive vice president, Diane Rowland, noted that waiting lists in non-expansion states are often longer than in expansion states, which currently receive a 95 percent federal match for their newly covered beneficiaries. The waiting lists Pence referred to apply to Medicaid’s home and community-based services, and have not been affected by the program’s expansion under the ACA. “I know Governor Kasich isn’t with us, but I suspect that he’s very troubled to know that in Ohio alone, nearly 60,000 disabled citizens are stuck on waiting lists, leaving them without the care they need for months or even years,” said Pence. In his speech, Pence also said the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid put “far too many able-bodied adults” on the program. They claimed, for instance, that the bill would not throw millions off insurance and that disabled Americans have been denied care because of the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA, which is also known as Obamacare. They offered a detailed pitch contrasting with the more general and sometimes contradictory rhetoric Trump has delivered on health care – but one that contained inaccuracies and quickly met with rebukes from health advocates. Pence joined Tom Price, President Donald Trump’s health and human services secretary, and Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to work governors in front of cameras and behind the scenes Friday in this waterfront city. Kasich, who did not attend, issued a statement calling the revised Senate plan “still unacceptable” because of its Medicaid cuts and possible impact on the private ACA insurance market.
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