House Republicans have unveiled the cost-saving centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”ABC NewsByLISA MASCAROMay 12, 2025House Republicans unveiled the cost-saving centerpiece of President Donald Trump's “ big, beautiful bill ” late Sunday, at least $880 billion in cuts largely to Medicaid to help cover the cost of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.Tallying hundreds of pages, the legislation is touching off the biggest political fight over health care since Republicans tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, during Trump's first term in 2017 — which ended in failure.While Republicans insist they are simply rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” to generate savings with new work and eligibility requirements, Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage. A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade.
112 days! That is all it took!
Raw Story reported,
Protesters opposing Republican cuts to Medicaid spending briefly shut down a House hearing on Tuesday.[...]Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) urged officers not to arrest the protesters."These demonstrations are people feel very strongly because they know they're losing their health care and the cruelty that comes from the Republican proposal that makes them lose their health care and their health insurance," he explained. "But I would just ask that to the police, I don't know if they're in the room, that we not arrest people if possible, because many of them are disabled, and I don't want to see them further hurt with their disability in the process of being arrested.""President Trump and congressional Republicans promised the American people they would not cut Medicaid benefits or strip away people's health care," he added. "It's clear that they have broken that promise."
Seniors are crying over not knowing what will happen to them, will they be kicked out of nursing homes? Will they lose their in-home caregiver that allows them to live on their own. Will grandmother and grandfather be forced out on the streets?
Center for Medicare AdvocacyFebruary 27, 2025Medicaid is the primary payer for nursing home care. Medicaid pays directly for residents’ care and provides financial support that enables many residents to use their Medicare benefit as well. The budget resolution passed by the House of Representatives on February 25, 2025, which requires $880 billion in cuts in the Medicaid program over a 10-year period in order to make tax cuts enacted in 2017 permanent and to pay for border security, would be devastating for nursing facility residents, states, and nursing facilities.Medicaid is critical for nursing home residents because the United States does not have a comprehensive program to pay for long-term care services. Medicaid also helps low-income Medicare beneficiaries (called “dually eligible beneficiaries”) who live in nursing facilities through various Medicare Savings Programs. Medicaid also helps pay Medicare premiums, coinsurance, and copays. In 2021 Medicaid helped ten million people pay their Medicare premiums and eight million people cover their Medicare coinsurance and copays.
"...in order to make tax cuts enacted in 2017 permanent and to pay for border security..." All this so that Musk and his billionaire friends can have their taxes cut. NPR sadly reports...
Down the line, this would create problems for the nation's 1.4 million nursing home residents — two-thirds of whom are covered by the state-federal health care program for people with low incomes or those with disabilities.Medicaid already pays less than other forms of insurance. As a result, nursing homes make more than 10 percent on Medicare residents, but lose about 2 percent on the rest of their residents because so many have care paid for by Medicaid.If the feared reductions in federal funding come to fruition, states would likely respond by either lowering their payment rates or restricting whom they cover and for how long. And the quality of care, experts say, would deteriorate further.
So will nursing homes throw them out on the street if they can't pay? The Republican party... the party of "Me, me, me..." with no empathy for their fellow humans. With the cuts made in the past years LTC are struggling to meet what the law requires them to do,
Low staffing is just one factor behind inferior quality ratings for homes that rely heavily on Medicaid, says Dr. David Gifford, senior vice president for quality and regulatory affairs at the American Health Care Association, a nursing home trade group. A facility's ability to buy medical equipment, medications and oxygen and to keep the building operating can also suffer.
And now it will even be worst... turning nursing homes into warehouses for the elderly!
Raw StoryBy David EdwardsMay 13, 2025Protesters opposing Republican cuts to Medicaid spending briefly shut down a House hearing on Tuesday.House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) kicked off the hearing by praising the GOP budget bill, saying it "unleashes American energy dominance, advances innovation, and protects access to care for our most vulnerable.""I have no doubt that we'll have some robust discussions today about these proposals," the chairman noted as a protest broke out in the committee room, shutting down the hearing."No cuts to Medicaid! No cuts to Medicaid!" the protesters chanted.
Yup, we got to make sure those billionaires can buy another megayachts!
How can you trust a party that lies, lies all the time to get elected and then they ignore the voters and follow their party.
Update 11:30AM
The Bulwark...
But then the details of the GOP proposal became clear—and so too did the massive impact it could have on the lives of low-income Americans.The GOP legislation still contained rather significant cuts to Medicaid, including requirements that enrollees show they are working (or qualify for a limited set of exemptions) and requirements that states check eligibility more frequently.The Republicans pushing these plans argue that work requirements reduce dependency on public programs—and that enrollment and eligibility changes will help reduce “waste, fraud, and abuse.” They are also happy to have the $625 billion in projected savings from those proposals, because they believe in smaller government and because they are looking for ways to offset the cost of the multi-trillion-dollar tax cuts in the same bill.But most people on Medicaid already work or have a reason like a disability that they can’t, so that the main impact of work requirements is to make enrolling and staying on Medicaid more difficult.[...]As Loren Adler, associate director of the Brookings Institution’s Center on Health Policy, put it to me Tuesday, “A lot of this is really just about erecting barriers to enrollment and re-enrollment, and then, more broadly, just narrowing eligibility.”
Just more smoke and mirrors for the Republicans!
"I thought your blog was about trans issues! Now all you write about is POLITICS!
Well in today's climate politics is all about trans issues. Just look at today's post on Medicaid, a vast number of trans people are on Medicaid. Many of us are seniors and will need to go to long term care facility as we get into our senior years.
There is a bill in the Connecticut General Assembly to protect us in long term care facilities, HB 6913 AN ACT PROHIBITING LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES FROM DISCRIMINATING AGAINST LONG-TERM CARE FACILITY RESIDENTS.
To prohibit long-term care facilities or long-term care facility staff from discriminating against any long-term care facility resident on the basis of such resident's actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or human immunodeficiency virus status.
You will not see any bills like this in Republican states and I would not be surprised to see the feds come after Connecticut in their "Anti-Woke" campaign on diversity. If you live in Connecticut please call your state Senator to tell them to vote for the bill. The Republicans have been trying to strip out protections for us along with for lesbians and gays!
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