America Is Getting Trumpcare Anyway

The Trump regime is moving rapidly to undo the last vestiges of Barack Obama in order to blast him from the history books, and that not only means rolling back Medicaid expansion to the states, it means federal lifetime limits on Medicaid coverage that will throw America's most vulnerable to the wolves.

After allowing states to impose work requirements for Medicaid enrollees, the Trump administration is now pondering lifetime limits on adults’ access to coverage. 

Capping health care benefits — like federal welfare benefits — would be a first for Medicaid, the joint state-and-federal health plan for low-income and disabled Americans.
If approved, the dramatic policy change would recast government-subsidized health coverage as temporary assistance by placing a limit on the number of months adults have access to Medicaid benefits. 

The move would continue the Trump administration’s push to inject conservative policies into the Medicaid program through the use of federal waivers, which allow states more flexibility to create policies designed to promote personal and financial responsibility among enrollees. 

However, advocates say capping Medicaid benefits would amount to a massive breach of the nation’s social safety net designed to protect children, the elderly and the impoverished. 

In January, the Trump administration approved waiver requests from Kentucky and Indiana to terminate Medicaid coverage for able-bodied enrollees who do not meet new program work requirements. Ten other states have asked to do the same. 

“We must allow states, who know the unique needs of their citizens, to design programs that don’t merely provide a Medicaid card but provide care that allows people to rise out of poverty and no longer need public assistance,” said a statement posted on Twitter on Monday by Medicaid administrator Seema Verma. 

At least five states — Arizona, Kansas, Utah, Maine and Wisconsin — are seeking waivers from the Trump administration to impose lifetime Medicaid coverage limits.

Have a chronic medical condition that requires Medicaid assistance?  Too bad.  You lived too long with it and cost the state too much money, so we're pulling the plug on you and your family.

Bye.

The recasting of the Affordable Care Act as "welfare for them coloreds" is nearly complete.  Gotta give those tax cuts to corporations and the super-rich so they can afford their own private security forces, after all.