The budget calls for ending the additional federal funding that helped states expand Medicaid to cover more people under the Affordable Care Act.
The inclusion of an $844 million "placeholder" in the latest budget coming out of the Trump White House, according to the Associated Press, indicates that Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are in the crosshairs.
The Hill estimates those cuts will total $1 trillion over a 10-year period—not something that will even clear the Democrat-controlled House. The $844 million supposedly comes from "savings" that, according to AP, "would be used for a health care plan Trump has been promising since he was a candidate." But there are still no details on what that plan might entail.
Not only does the budget call for $844 million in hypothetical savings, but there are also more than $150 billion in additional cuts from implementing Medicaid work requirements and other changes to the program. Such cuts will continue to reduce the number of people who can get health coverage under the ACA—something that has been steadily rising under the Trump administration.
Modern Healthcare points out that the budget also fails to include any details the key issues of major health care reform and drug price reform.
However, there is one policy spelled out in the document: The budget calls for ending the additional federal funding that helped states expand Medicaid to cover more people under the Affordable Care Act.
There doesn't appear to be much enthusiasm for the budget's health care provisions on either side outside of the administration, and a tweet from Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, sums it up. "President Trump's budget is not going to be passed this year. But, it signals that he would look to dramatically scale back the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid if he's reelected and Republicans control Congress."
In addition, both the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals, denounced its provisions.
"The arbitrary cuts to health care programs envisioned in the budget will make the job of America's caregivers much more difficult," said Federation CEO Chip Kahn. "This proposal combined with already issued regulations will result in a reduction in coverage, putting the health care of millions of patients at risk."
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
