The Medicaid Fund: Beware of Gifts
<p>Press reports have suggested that Senate leaders are now considering a $200 billion fund to help states partially offset the nearly $800 billion dollars in lost federal Medicaid funding they would face over the next decade if the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) became law. This fund, to be administered by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), would apparently be used to help low-income people transition from Medicaid to private insurance. </p><p>In a new<em> To the Point</em> post, George Washington University’s Sara Rosenbaum and colleagues explain that the fund, which is expected to be time-limited, will do little to address the human and financial consequences of the BCRA’s original cuts. In addition, there are questions about how the money would be spent, as well as the unusual delegation of Congress’s constitutional legislative powers to the HHS secretary. </p>
<p>“No vague promises or pennies-on-the-dollar slush fund can take the place of what Medicaid does for people and for states,” Rosenbaum writes.</p>