The Republicans of the House of Representatives announced on Sunday night the legislative text of a key part of their bill that includes cuts and other changes in Medicaid, one of the most controversial issues they face when trying to advance in the president’s agenda, Donald Trump, in a high reach package.
The legislation published by the Energy and Commerce Committee points to a review on Tuesday afternoon, and includes a 160 -page section covered by health and medical assistance.
The bill would make a series of medicality expenses reductions through policies such as the strictest verification of eligibility, citizenship controls, stricter exams in suppliers that receive reimbursements and cuts of federal funds from Medicaid to states that offer coverage to residents living in the United States without legal documents.
The bill also aims to impose labor requirements to receive medicality from healthy adults between 19 and 64 years of age without people, demanding that they work at least 80 hours – or carry out 80 hours of community services or other programs – per month. It includes exceptions for pregnant women and short -term exemptions due to economic difficulties in limited cases.
It does not include some of the most aggressive provisions that had caused tensions among Republicans, such as the per capita limits in the expense of Medicaid and the increase in the state load to cover the population of Expansion of Medicaid under the affordable health care law (ACA).
“When so many really needy Americans depend on Medicaid for services that save lives, Washington cannot afford to undermine the program by subsidizing capable adults who decide not to work. That is why our project of law would establish reasonable labor requirements,” wrote Republican representative Brett Guthrie, president of the commission, in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal.
Guthrie said he expects attacks of “alarmism” against legislation, but maintained that “preserves and reinforces Medicaid for children, mothers, people with disabilities and older adults, for whom the program was designed.”
The Democrats distributed a letter from the Congress Office of the Congress, not partisan, with a preliminary analysis that concluded that the medical care of the bill would cut the expense at 715,000 million dollars and “It would reduce the number of people with health insurance by at least 8.6 million in 2034.”
“Trump and Republicans have been lying when they claim that they will not cut Medicaid and remove the medical attention of people,” said the representative by New Jersey Frank Pallone, the main Democrat in the committee. “Let’s be clear, republican leadership published this bill under the night because they don’t want people to know their true intentions.”
“This is not to cut the fat of the edges, but to cut to the bone. The vast majority of the savings of this bill will come to remove health care from millions of Americans,” he added. “Nowhere in the bill is trimmed the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’, but the health care of the people is cut and that money is used to give tax exemptions to billionaires.”
The law could be modified in the Committee, and needs to win almost all Republicans in the Plenary of the Chamber, closely divided, to become law. Then he would pass to the Senate.
Medicaid’s issue has caused a division within the game, since some Republicans warn their colleagues not to get into the program. Among them, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who published an opinion article on the New York Times on Monday: “If Congress cuts the financing of Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose healthcare. And hospitals will close. So simple. And that employer will be repeated in states throughout the country.”
With information from NBC News and
