WASHINGTON — The House Republican budget would leave up to 44 million more low-income people uninsured as the federal government cuts states’ Medicaid funding by about one- third over the next 10 years, nonpartisan groups said in a report issued Tuesday. The analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute concluded that Medicaid’s role as the nation’s safety net health care program would be “significantly compromised . . . with no obvious alternative to take its place.”
A spokesman for the author of the GOP budget, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, challenged the study’s assumptions. The plan will allow Medicaid to grow “at a sustainable rate, so that the health care safety net will be there for those that need it most,” said the spokesman, Conor Sweeney.
Medicaid covers more than 60 million low-income children and parents, seniors — including most nursing home residents, and disabled people of any age. Under the GOP plan, Medicaid would be converted from an open-ended program in which the federal government pays about 60 percent of the cost of services, into a block grant that would give each state a fixed sum of money. It would also do away with the right to Medicaid benefits.
The Associated Press
