Larry Levitt
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
Work requirements are an idea that has broad consensus, at least among Republicans, not among Democrats. It sort of gets to this fundamental disagreement over what Medicaid is. Is Medicaid a welfare program for the deserving poor and therefore people should have to work in order to qualify for health insurance? Or is it a kind of stepping stone to universal health insurance?
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
And that's really the view of Democrats. The reality is the vast majority of Medicaid enrollees, other than those who are disabled or seniors, are already working or they're caring for small kids or they're too sick to work. But this is a very popular idea among Republicans to require work, and it could save a substantial amount of money.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
Yeah, I mean, there's about a dozen states that have these trigger laws related to the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. If the federal government cut back on how much it would spend, those states would immediately end their Medicaid expansions.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
Some of the effects would be very direct, right? So if you eliminated the Obamacare, Medicaid expansion, 20 million people would lose coverage. A very direct effect on those people's access to health care. Medicaid is so embedded in our health care system and provides all kinds of resources to prop up the system. Rural hospitals are operating on a shoestring.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
And you cut Medicaid, you risk some of those rural hospitals closing or eliminating services like maternity care. I mean, Medicaid funds 40 percent of the births in this country. There's certain sectors like mental health, which one of the listeners mentioned, substance abuse treatment, where Medicaid is really key to just funding the whole system.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
And if you cut Medicaid, you remove resources from that part of the health care system. It just makes it harder to operate.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
You know, most of the people on Medicaid are kids, working adults, but the most expensive people on Medicaid are people with disabilities and seniors, particularly those in nursing homes. So if you blow a hole in state budgets with big cuts to Medicaid, they may go to where the money is, and the money is people getting long-term care.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
Yeah, I mean, there's fat everywhere, right? We can all be more efficient. And God knows our health care system is not the most efficient. When you compare it to other countries, we spend double what other countries spend on health care. The reality is Medicaid is probably the most efficient part of our health care system. In some ways, Medicaid is
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
too efficient, too cost effective in the sense that it pays doctors very low rates, much lower than Medicare or private insurance. Medicaid has actually grown slower in recent years than either Medicare or private insurance. You know, in many ways, Medicaid is not the place where you would first look to try to cut the fat out of our health care system.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
One of the things that people may not realize, a lot of people end up on Medicaid, or someone in their family does, at some point in their lives. In fact, we did a poll recently. Over half of people say they've been on Medicaid or someone in their family has been on Medicaid.
WSJ What’s News
Medicaid Cuts: What’s on the Table and What It Means for You
Also, the fact that health care providers are concerned that Medicaid underpays them and they've got to charge more to other payers. This is a controversial notion, but there is some reality to it. And if there are cuts to Medicaid, it might actually make health care more expensive for other people in some cases.