A plan by congressional Republicans would pay for tax cuts for the wealthy by reducing federal support for Medicaid — the state-administered insurance program for low-income and working-class Americans. In late April, a Republican House member — Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia — spelled out what his party hopes to do.
The scheme would all but repeal a major portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by taking away the federal dollars states were promised in return for expanding Medicaid to cover working-class individuals and families. Twelve states have laws that automatically end the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid if federal cost-sharing is reduced in the way Scott described — and even in other states, the loss of federal money threatens to make Medicaid unsustainable:
Policy analysts say that the Republican plan to reduce federal support for Medicaid could put health coverage for about 20 million people at risk.