As the Republicans in Congress fight options to reduce Medicaid’s costs, the Congress Budget Office has estimated that the main plans under consideration could generate significant savings, but they would also increase the participation of Americans who have no insurance.
The Budget Office considered several options as Republicans try to find hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts from Medicaid spending to help compensate for the costs of the tax cuts they expect to extend. But two main proposals that would help achieve that goal would leave millions without health coverage, according to office estimates.
An option, to limit the way in which states use a fiscal escape to increase federal expenditure in Medicaid, would save $ 668 billion, but would cause 3.9 million Americans not to be health insurance.
Another option, which would reduce federal expenditure in Medicaid beneficiaries who are part of the Obamacare program expansion, would save the government $ 710 billion for a decade, but it would make 2.4 million people not ensure.
But after a meeting with the centrist republican legislators on Tuesday, President Mike Johnson said he had ruled out the reduction of the financing formula for adults of working age who are covered by the expansion of the affordable health care law.
The Budget Office published the estimates on Wednesday in a letter to Democratic legislators in the Finance and Energy and Commerce Committees of the House of Representatives, who had requested them from the office.
The budget plan approved for Republican majorities in both Chambers asks the Chamber Committee that Supervisa Medicaid, which provides health coverage to around 72 million Americans who are poor or disabled, to find $ 880 billion in cuts, a difficult goal to fulfill without including important changes in the program.
The analysis considered some other policy options: one would change the medical structure of one in which the program pays for the medical invoices of beneficiaries to one in which the states received a fixed payment for each person. This option would reduce the deficit by $ 662 billion and lead to 2.9 million people without insurance.
Another proposal, which would allow states to require more paperwork of the beneficiaries to register and stay registered, would save $ 162 billion and cause 600,000 people not to have insurance.
In each scenario, the reductions in the registration of Medicaid are greater than the increases projected in the number of people without insurance, because the budget office assumes that some people currently covered by Medicaid would obtain insurance in another way.
The analysis did not include an option in which Republicans seem to agree: a policy that would require certain medical beneficiaries to demonstrate that a minimum number of hours are working to receive benefits. A prior estimate of the Budget Office suggested that such a policy could reduce federal expenditure by around $ 100 billion, but that policy will probably overlap with others, which means that totals cannot be added.
All budget office calculations assume that states would respond to changes in federal policy by making changes to their own programs. The Budget Office said that some states would stop covering those that are now covered by the expansion of the Health Care Law at low price. Others would reduce the benefits or payments to medical suppliers. Some would make changes in other parts of their state budgets to compensate for the difference.
Democratic leaders used estimates to attack the Republican Plan.
“This analysis of the non -partisan independent CBO is simple: the Republican Plan for Medical Care means benefits cuts and finished health insurance for millions of Americans who have Medicaid,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, classification member of the Finance Committee.
