Trump lying on the West Lawn
Credit: NBC News

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to intensify its assault on Medicaid by granting certain states permission to convert federal funding for the program into block grants, a move critics slammed as a cruel and likely illegal attack on vulnerable people.

Politico reported Thursday that the plan, which could be finalized as early as next week, would allow the 37 states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to seek waivers to convert funding into fixed sums that could limit states’ flexibility to increase spending in response to public need.

Block-granting Medicaid is a longtime Republican goal dating back at least to the Reagan administration. The Trump administration’s proposal has been in the works for over a year.

“In the same week President Trump said cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are on the table, we now learn that his administration is set to propose benefit-slashing block grants on Medicaid expansion.”
—Brad Woodhouse, Protect Our Care

Bruce Bartlett, an architect of former President Ronald Reagan’s right-wing economic agenda who left the GOP in 2006, tweeted Thursday […]

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