As Congress moves toward making significant changes to the federal Medicaid program, Congressman Riley Moore of West Virginia expressed support.
Moore said the changes being considered maintain services for those who need the health insurance safety net while reducing spending. The proposals do institute more rigorous requirements that are anticipated to cause millions of people to drop their Medicaid coverage.
“So Medicaid is protected for the citizens of West Virginia,” Moore, R-W.Va., said on MetroNews Talkline.
“There’s not going to be some new calculation for state government where they’re going to have to put in more money because there’s been a cut at the federal level. So I think this is a really nuanced and perfect solution.”
One of the new provisions is “community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents.
“Those work requirements, by the way, is not requirement that you just have a job, but it could be that you are looking for a job, you are in training, you’re taking courses, you’re making an effort to find employment,” Moore said.
People would also have to verify their eligibility to be in the program twice a year, rather than just once. And the bill adds a more rigorous income verification for those who enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health care coverage.
The bill limits taxes that states charge medical providers as a roundabout way of collecting more federal Medicaid dollars.
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee started consideration of the legislation on Tuesday afternoon.
Preliminary estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show that health provisions including Medicaid in the reconciliation bill would trim $715 billion in spending over ten years and increase the number of people without health insurance by at least 8.6 million by 2034.
“Yes, if individuals don’t want to look for jobs, if they don’t want to look for work, then yes, you could lose Medicaid. But this is fairly straightforward and simple,” Moore said.
The Republican majority is trying to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to help offset the cost of extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
A big focus is Medicaid, the joint federal and state program for health insurance and medical services, traditionally for poor, elderly and disabled Americans but more recently also for the working class.
More than a half million West Virginians are supported by the program, according to a state budget overview for the West Virginia Department of Human Services. That’s just under a third of all West Virginia residents.
“Congressman Moore is right that the vast majority of people on Medicaid need it and are already working or would meet an exemption. But implementing work reporting requirements is much more complicated for recipients and state agencies than he describes,” said Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy.
“In fact, research shows that exemptions are not effective in protecting people with disabilities and serious conditions from coverage losses, and that the vast majority of people who lose coverage do not because they are ineligible — rather, eligible people are cut off due to the burdensome red tape and paperwork requirements.”
The policy organization estimates that about 40,000 West Virginians would lose health care coverage, including more than 23,000 residents in Congresswoman Carol Miller’s district and 17,000 in the northern counties represented by Moore.
“This Medicaid proposal would harm untold West Virginians,” Allen said, “by stripping away health coverage from tens of thousands who need it, slashing vital federal funds from our state economy and health care system, and costing thousands of health care jobs.”