By skyforbes 
Weird Trump/Vance are coming for your Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, Social Security and UI
“HHS [Health and Human Services] is home to Medicare and Medicaid, the principal drivers of our $31 trillion national debt.” [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 266.
“Medicaid and the health safety net have evolved into a cumbersome, complicated, and unaffordable burden on nearly every state.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 444.
“Trump introduced a budget to cut Social Security and Medicare every single year he was in office. The reason it didn’t happen was because Democrats stopped him.” Bold added, Kamala HQ, Twitter/X, 26 July 2024
“Medicare and Medicaid touch more American lives than does any other federal program. While they help many, they operate as runaway entitlements that stifle medical innovation, encourage fraud, and impede cost containment, in addition to which their fiscal future is in peril.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 442.
“The dramatic increase in Medicaid expenditures is due in large part to the ACA (Obamacare), which mandates that states must expand their Medicaid eligibility standards to include all individuals at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), and the public health emergency, which has prohibited states from performing basic eligibility reviews.” (brackets original), bold added, Project 25, p. 444.
If “eligibility reviews” for ACA coverage are permitted, think bye-bye to coverage for preexisting conditions.
“The Affordable Care Act has made insurance more expensive…” bold added, Project 25, p. 448.
That statement is incomprehensible; either that or it is an outright lie. Lie, definitely.
“…irrational Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement schemes.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 430.
“…inappropriateness of Medicaid’s expansion…” Bold added, Project 25, p. 445.
“Repeal harmful health policies enacted under the Obama and Biden Administrations such as the Medicare Shared Savings Program and Inflation Reduction Act.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 444.
“Medicare Advantage (MA), a system of competing private health plans, is the major alternative to traditional Medicare…Make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment option.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 443.
Think privatize Medicare.
“Medicare Part D Reform. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) created a drug price negotiation program in Medicare that replaced the existing private-sector negotiations in Part D with government price controls for prescription drugs. These government price controls will limit access to medications and reduce patient access to new medication. This ‘negotiation’ program should be repealed.” [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 444.
Think capping cost of insulin at $35/month will be repealed! Hardly anyone benefits from capping insulin cost, right?
“…it is imperative that there are appropriate and accurate eligibility standards…Require more robust eligibility determinations. Strengthen asset test determinations within Medicaid…eliminate middle-income to upper income Medicaid recipients” Bold added, Project 25, pp. 446–447.
Think more devious ways to refuse coverage to more people! Also, serious asset tests for eligibility already exist for Medicaid.
Heritage Foundation always wants to stigmatize, demean, attack and punish the neediest, poorest and most powerless among us. Heritage Foundation people have weird, cruel hearts of stone.
“Medicaid recipients, like the rest of Americans, should be given…the responsibility to contribute to their health care costs…” Bold added, Project 25, p. 446.
Isn’t the idea, actually a fact, that Medicaid beneficiaries don’t have any money?
“Add work requirements [to qualify for Medicaid]…” [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 446.
As if the recipients of Medicaid benefits are cheaters mooching off the system.
“Add targeted time limits or lifetime caps on [Medicaid] benefits to disincentivize permanent dependence. [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 447.
As if poverty, disability, age and powerlessness have an expiry date!
“…a health savings account (HSA) for the direct purchase of health care and payment of cost sharing for most of the population.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 447.
That will surely appeal to families that already have to choose between food and heat.
“Revisit the No Surprises Act on surprise medical billing. The No Surprises Act should scrap the dispute resolution process…” Bold added, Project 25, p. 448.
As expected from Heritage, remove anything that supports the most needy and protect private enterprise at any cost to anyone else.
“Prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds. The bulk of federal funding for Planned Parenthood comes through the Medicaid program [an abortion-ban strategy].” [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 449.
“…review…Medicaid managed care plans in pro-abortion states. Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance…seven states require abortion coverage in private health insurance plans, and HHS [Health and Human Services] continues to fund those states.” [brackets added], bold original, [brackets added], Project 25, pp. 450, 451.
“Medicare regulations restrict choice of coverage and care.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 442.
All private health insurance plans “restrict choice of coverage and care.”
“In July 2022, HHS/CMS released guidance mandating that EMTALA covered hospitals and the physicians who work there must perform abortions, to include completing chemical abortions even when the child might still be alive. The guidance also declared that EMTALA would protect physicians and hospitals that perform abortions in violation of state law if they deem those abortions necessary to stabilize the women’s health. This novel interpretation of EMTALA is baseless.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 451.
“The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) prohibits hospitals that receive Medicare funds from ‘dumping’ emergency patients who cannot pay by sending them to other hospitals. It also mandates that hospitals stabilize pregnant women and explicitly protects unborn children. Hospitals or physicians found to be in violation of the statute could lose all of their federal health funding — Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and other funds — and face civil penalties of up to nearly $120,000.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 451.
Please pay attention! If strictly enforced, “explicitly protects unborn children” means fetal personhood, and that would effectively mean the anti-abortion ban would supersede saving the mother’s life! Of all abortion bans, no exception even to save the mother’s life is the most radical, extreme, dangerous fascist variation.
Expect serious cuts and/or privatization of social security and unemployment insurance (UI) if Trump/Vance win the 5 November 2024 presidential election.
“Trump introduced a budget to cut Social Security and Medicare every single year he was in office. The reason it didn’t happen was because Democrats stopped him.” Bold added, Kamala HQ, Twitter/X, 26 July 2024
“Existing statutory language in the Social Security Act does not prohibit non-public organizations from administering the program…” Bold added, Project 25, p. 579.
This means privatization of Social Security. What could possibly go wrong?
“…existing unemployment insurance (UI) is bureaucratic, ineffective, and unaccountable.” Project 25, p. 579.
“Approve non-public worker organizations as UI administrators. DOL [Department of Labor] should approve, pursuant to § 303(a)(2) of the Social Security Act, nonpublic worker organizations as administrators.” [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 580.
This means privatization of Unemployment Insurance (UI). What could possibly go wrong?
“The most promising avenue for [UI] innovation is…private-sector organizations… Americans take for granted that unemployment benefits must be administered by government agencies, but other Western market democracies feature effective and popular benefits administered by non-public worker organizations.” [brackets added], bold added, Project 25, p. 579.
“State agencies that administer unemployment benefits and workforce development programs should be able to hire the best people to do the job and should not be required to use state employees if a contractor can do the job better.” Bold added, Project 25, p. 581.
Twitter/X, 6 August 2024