What Lies Ahead For Medicaid In Budget Reconciliation?

President Trump recently stated, “We will love and cherish” Medicaid, promising that budget cutting would be limited to finding waste and abuse. But that sentiment is not likely to prevail as Congress moves forward with massive budget cutting efforts, to be carried out in either one or two phases. (The strategy is not yet clear.). Indeed, given the proposals that have surfaced, it is evident that tens of millions of people face a high risk of losing Medicaid coverage and services, either through significant cuts to federal funding or imposition of a work mandate with complex reporting requirements as a condition of eligibility, or a combination of the two.

Should Congress pursue a wide range of possible budget-cutting...