GOP governors outline health care plan, Medicaid changes

washingtontimes ^ | THOMAS BEAUMONT

[davikkm]

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Republican governors from seven states are calling for dramatic changes to Medicaid, which provides insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans, as they nervously watch President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders move to repeal and replace the Obama-era health law. At the same time, they’re telling Washington: Don’t scrap the Affordable Care Act without a viable alternative. According to a draft of the proposal obtained by The Associated Press, the governors are urging Congress to adopt an alternative that would change Medicaid from an open-ended federal entitlement to a program designed by each state within a financial limit. Led by Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a frequent critic of some GOP proposals on health care, the governors plan to present their proposal at their annual meeting in Washington on Saturday.

[map]

“Led by Ohio Gov. John Kasich...”

This is not a time for comedy.

[map]

Kasich met in Washington on Friday with Trump to discuss the plan, and described the president as having “listened very carefully to what I had to say about it.”

Did Trump maintain a straight face?

[Parmy]

“Led by Ohio Gov. John Kasich...”

Followed by Washington's gov. Jay Inslee. Dumb and dumber.

[Intolerant in NJ]

The majority of people newly covered under Obamacare received that coverage only because the federal government put more money into Medicaid to expand the number who could be covered - Republicans will be in big trouble if they simply cut back on that coverage without some way of providing for those now covered - but undoubtedly somewhere in the fine print of the ACA is a provision that eventually cuts back the amount of funding the feds were going to supply, leaving the states holding the bag for the vanishing federal monies - that’s usually the way the federal government works - Republicans should just say they’re going to let those ACA Medicaid provisions in place, including the already scheduled federal cutbacks, and let those states which thought they were getting away with something by shifting some of the medical burden on to the feds deal with what was gong to happen to them anyway.....