The House Energy & Commerce Committee passed 30-24, along party lines, a bill that would gut the country’s Medicaid program. Despite the fact that more than 71 million Americans depend on Medicaid for their healthcare coverage, including 40 percent of adults living with HIV, and more than 83 million Americans rely on Medicaid expansion for their healthcare coverage, the Committee’s majority greenlit their plan to gut the program to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-rich. Nearly 14 million people could lose coverage because of this proposal.
No matter how much supporters of this legislation mischaracterize Medicaid as fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse, this highly efficient program is a critical foundation to our healthcare system. They spent hours over the more than 24-hour long hearing differentiating between those “deserving” of healthcare and those who they deem unworthy. AIDS United rejects this premise outright. Healthcare, including HIV prevention, treatment, and care, is a human right.
To achieve “savings” to pay for tax breaks, current Medicaid beneficiaries must lose care. That is the only way this budget reconciliation process will meet the demands of the administration.
The House majority plans to fast track this bill to the House floor. We urge our communities to take action now and demand your elected officials protect your care.
The effects of this policy proposal include:
- Requiring mandatory work reporting requirements for non-disabled adults 19-64 with no dependents who get their coverage through Medicaid expansion. This already failed tactic will make people living with HIV more vulnerable to interruptions in their coverage due to difficulty meeting administrative burdens associated with work reporting requirements – despite the fact that many Medicaid beneficiaries living with HIV are already working.
- This proposal would institute new cost-sharing requirements for those who have gotten coverage through Medicaid expansion. Despite 40 states in the nation expanding Medicaid eligibility to needy adults – and seeing immediate improvements in the health of the beneficiaries – this proposal will require new cost-sharing, including up to five percent of the person’s income or up to $35 per visit.
- Placing additional administrative burdens on states, including more frequent eligibility verification. In addition to the burdensome administrative requirements for employment verification, this proposal institutes requirements for more frequent eligibility checks. While this may seem reasonable on its face, it’s another tactic to simply push people off of health insurance by miring them – and the states – in red tape. Administrative gimmicks that say their intent is to eliminate fraud, are just that – gimmicks that could have life-altering consequences.
- Attacking immigrant and trans communities by depriving them healthcare. This proposal will penalize states that have extended eligibility to residents of their states without collecting documentation status. This bill intends to exact an economic toll on those states simply for wanting to take care of their residents using their own state funds, while also intimidating immigrant communities into not seeking healthcare.
This proposal also doubles down on attempts to deprive trans communities of healthcare – first by banning gender affirming care services to minors – maintaining false and misleading rhetoric. And second, by going beyond even the administration’s recent proposed rule restricting coverage of gender affirming care for adults – and taking another step toward banning trans adults’ access to Medicaid coverage.
- Eliminating a significant provider pool by blocking Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. Realizing a long-standing desire by conservatives to kick Planned Parenthood out of the Medicaid program, this proposal essentially ‘defunds’ the organization. Supporters of this proposal are willing to eliminate the only healthcare provider many people living with and vulnerable to HIV rely on, particularly those with less means or live in areas where providers are scarce, simply because the organization may provide abortion services somewhere else in its network. This is a political stunt that will have the effect of eliminating access for millions.
None of these proposals to slash Medicaid spending will make people living with or vulnerable to HIV healthier. Regardless of what they call these cuts, the only way their proposal achieves its desired goal is by kicking people off of Medicaid. We must demand that Congress let us live – without interference and without vilification.
