FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Chip Roy is taking on Medicaid expansion, introducing a bill Friday that he says will prevent “able-bodied adults” from taking advantage of Obamacare expansion.
The Texas lawmaker’s bill comes as his fellow Republicans are debating how they will reach an $880 billion cut over 10 years in their budget markup for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction on Medicaid.
“Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion perpetuates a scam in which states get seven times as much money from the federal government for able-bodied adults than the traditional Medicaid population, including pregnant women, children, disabled people, and the elderly,” said Roy in a statement to The Daily Signal.
Roy claims that his bill “would achieve $250 billion in savings while having minimal disruption in coverage.”
The Ending Medicaid Discrimination Against the Most Vulnerable Act has a twofold function, he said.
First, it permits “states to reduce Medicaid expansion eligibility from 138% to 100% of the federal poverty level. Individuals above 100% FPL would become eligible for ACA exchange coverage with generous premium tax credits.”
That means fewer people who are not technically living in poverty by federal standards would have Medicaid eligibility.
Second, it would phase down the rate at which the federal government matches state Medicaid payments. The technical term for this rate is the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage.
The law would “gradually phase down the 90% federal reimbursement rate over eight years for ACA Medicaid expansion enrollees,” Roy’s press release says.
In other words, the feds would stop picking up almost the entire tab for Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid to enrollees who are neither parents, nor disabled, nor below the poverty line.
“The federal match would decline by uniform percentage points—5 points annually in higher-income states and 2 points annually in lower-income states—until it aligns with each state’s regular FMAP,” Roy’s statement says.
The bill additionally would end “the additional 5-percentage-point FMAP bonus for late expansion states included in the American Rescue Plan Act.”
Roy appears to view post-Obamacare federal reimbursement of Medicaid expansion as unfair to taxpayers in Texas, which has resisted expansion.
“Texans have to pay for a program that is being abused by Democratic strongholds to fund Medicaid expansion for illegal aliens and the able-bodied while racking up trillions in federal debt,” he said in a statement to The Daily Signal.
“The federal government should not further penalize the 10 states, including Texas, that have held the line and not expanded Medicaid.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., who is leading the House in its sprint to pass a budget before Independence Day, has previously ruled out scaling back federal reimbursement of Medicaid.
“I think we’re ruling that out,” Johnson said last Thursday when asked by reporters.
Roy, who argues Republicans should use the budget process to scale back liberal legislation such as the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, has not wavered.
“Well—I haven’t ruled it out. It’s necessary to stop robbing from the vulnerable to fund the able-bodied,” he said on X in response to Johnson.
Roy has previously stated that, without cutting mandatory spending to pay for tax cuts and scaling back Medicaid and environmental subsidies, it will be “impossible for [him] to support a final [budget] reconciliation product.”
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
