Conservative Senators Want to Slash Medicaid Even More Than the Cruel House Bill

Here's to All the Women and Children Who Get Health Care From the Program  But May Not in the Future

A large number of health care providers and other decent people were horrified by House health care legislation that slashed Medicaid spending, spending which helps those who simply cannot afford health care.  Now it turns out some Senators have upped the ante in the ‘Cruelty Sweepstakes’ and are trying to cut Medicaid bigger and faster.

Conservative Senate Republicans are weighing faster and steeper cuts to Medicaid that could drop millions of people from coverage and mark the biggest changes to the program in its 52-year history.

And those conservatives currently in control of the states want to make it more difficult and more humiliating for those eligible to get benefits.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker plans to ask the Trump administration for a waiver that would require some Medicaid applicants to undergo drug testing and other restrictions. Maine Gov. Paul LePage wants work requirements and time limits on coverage.

They aren’t alone. States including Arizona and Florida are weighing requests to impose similar changes such as work requirements for enrollees. Those moves are separate from the health-care legislation now moving through Congress.

Think about that one provision Maine has in mind.  Term limits on coverage.  In short, if you don't get well in a time period the government sets, that's it.  No more treatment.  Good grief.

The mind doth boggle at the cruelty, the hatred of low income people and the tremendous damage such policies would do.  And guess what, it won’t save money.  Those people kicked out of Medicaid will still get a lot of health care, just in an inefficient manner, with more suffering and the bill being paid for in higher premiums for the rest of the population. 

Stupidity and viciousness has entered a new and exciting phase.