�鶹Ů��

As House Republicans hurtle toward shifting the nation’s health-care system onto a more conservative path, nearly lost so far in the roiling debate over their plans is the profound impact they would have on insurance for the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable residents. The proposed American Health Care Act would break with the government’s half-century-old compact with states in helping to finance Medicaid, which covers 68 million low-income people, including children, pregnant women and those who are elderly or disabled. (Goldstein and Eilperin, 3/12)

The Republican push to overhaul the Affordable Care Act showed signs of bogging down Friday over the fate of Medicaid, as governors from states that expanded the program under the law faced off against conservative lawmakers who want to cut it back. Republican governors from the 16 states that expanded Medicaid intend to produce their own proposal for preserving some aspects of the Medicaid expansion, according to people familiar with the plan. It is expected to clash with a House GOP proposal that would freeze federal funding in 2020 for states that expanded Medicaid and bring other steep cuts. But the 16 governors don’t appear to be in agreement, one of these people said. (Hackman, Armour and Hughes, 3/11)

House Republicans ended the week still sharply divided about how quickly to try to halt new enrollment in the Medicaid expansion, with conservatives seeking White House support for speeding the timeline in GOP legislation to replace the 2010 health care law. The dispute previews the challenges ahead for Republicans as they seek to replace the law, which added about 11 million Americans to Medicaid rolls by raising income limits. So far, GOP leaders appear to be holding firm to the draft House legislation's 2019 date for effectively halting the expansion. (Young, 3/10)

House Republican leaders on Friday dismissed conservatives’ calls for an earlier rollback of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. “I think right now that’d be very difficult to do,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said of pulling back the expansion before the current date of 2020. (Reid, 3/10)

Congressman Roger Marshall of Kansas is distancing himself from comments he made recently to STAT about poor patients and their health care, which garnered considerable backlash. In a recent interview, discussing the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, Marshall, a Republican, said: “Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us.’ There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.” ... Marshall’s office sought to soften his tone and pointed to his decades of experience helping to oversee free family clinics. (Facher, 3/10)

A Republican-crafted bill that would overhaul the Affordable Care Act has begun making its way through Congress. But in addition to changing then-President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, the legislation also proposes major changes to the Medicaid program, the federal- and state-funded program that insures many disabled individuals, elderly people and children. And that has advocacy groups concerned. (Giammarise, 3/13)

Days after tweeting his opposition to the House Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid’s chief medical officer abruptly cancelled an appearance at South by Southwest. In an interview Saturday, Andrey Ostrovsky said he was unable to attend “given my recent advocacy effort,” a comment he also posted on Twitter hours before he was scheduled to speak. (Evans, 3/11)

Politics and policy are clashing in the Virginia governor’s race as Republican gubernatorial candidates embrace Medicaid block grants that some GOP budget leaders regard as a dangerous approach that could shift federal health care costs to state taxpayers. Ed Gillespie, the presumed front-runner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, told a campaign policy forum this month that he favors proposals to convert Medicaid from an entitlement program shared by the federal and state governments to a block grant that would cap federal spending on health care. (Martz, 3/12)

Trump administration health officials will soon decide whether Kentucky may demand that Medicaid recipients meet work requirements similar to those imposed on welfare recipients in the 1990s. The action is one of many ways Republicans could make quiet, but substantial, regulatory changes to Medicaid, even if Democrats thwart their efforts to overhaul the health care program for the poor. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price will have opportunities to tip a decades-old national debate about the role of Medicaid toward views favored by fellow conservatives. (Young, 3/13)