Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act is now law. Democrats have wasted no time accusing the GOP of enshrining devastating “cuts” to Medicaid, the joint federal-state entitlement that provides health coverage for low-income Americans.
That’s rubbish. The measure takes steps to restrain Medicaid’s rampant growth in recent years so that the program prioritizes our nation’s neediest, in line with its historical mandate.
The new law doesn’t cut Medicaid spending. If Republicans had done nothing, the entitlement’s cost would have ballooned by roughly $1.5 trillion over the coming decade, as Steve Forbes wrote earlier this year.
Under the newly signed law, Medicaid remains on track to spend $450 billion more, a 7% increase, between 2025 and 2034 than the Congressional Budget Office had predicted in 2021. That’s a far cry from a “cut.”
Democrats prefer to point to a CBO estimate that the OBBBA will kick more than 10 million people off Medicaid as evidence of “cuts.”
But Republicans aren’t stripping coverage from vulnerable groups the entitlement was created to serve: pregnant women, the blind, the disabled, and the like.
The CBO projects that 1.4 million illegal immigrants, 4.8 million able-bodied people subject to new work or community engagement requirements, and 1.6 million people who don’t qualify for Medicaid for other reasons will lose coverage.
Federal law bars Medicaid from covering illegal immigrants. But for years, states have used workarounds to shoehorn noncitizens into the program. Unenrolling illegal immigrants amounts to enforcing the law.
As for work requirements, it’s only fair to ask that able-bodied, working-age individuals without young children contribute to their communities in exchange for taxpayer-funded coverage. Working, attending school, or volunteering a mere 20 hours per week is hardly burdensome.
‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ 2.0 COULD SET UP FISCAL HAWKS FOR MORE DISAPPOINTMENT
In the end, the OBBBA could benefit America’s most vulnerable. Pregnant women, children, and other needy individuals will now have first claim on the healthcare dollars Congress set aside, especially for them. That’s why some proponents argue that the OBBBA won’t just save money but could save lives.
Refocusing Medicaid to prioritize the needy is worthy of bipartisan support, and the Big Beautiful Bill pushes us in that direction.
Continue Reading at The Washington Examiner.