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Tiffany v. Larson on Medicaid
The latest argument about the future of Medicaid didn’t come at the Wisconsin Capitol, or even on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. It came on X, between one of Wisconsin’s Republican congressmen and one of the state’s Democratic state senators.
Northwoods Congressman Tom Tiffany explained that the Trump Administration believes that Medicaid is only for the people who truly need government help.
“When Democrats expanded Medicaid to illegal aliens and able-bodied adults, they diverted resources from those who truly need them (the disabled, pregnant women, single mothers, and low-income children),” Tiffany wrote. “Republicans should correct this wrong.”
That seemed to bother state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee.
“The Republican budget bill in Congress would cause between 187,000 and 261,000 Wisconsinites to lose their Medicaid-funded health coverage. That's up to 20% of current enrollment,” Larson wrote on X. “When the uninsured rate increases, costs go up, hospitals close, and people die.”
Democrats, both in Wisconsin and in Washington, D.C., are framing any changes to Medicaid as a cut.
Larson has said for weeks that Republicans plan to cut healthcare benefits to millions of people.
But Tiffany and other Republicans have maintained that those so-called cuts are really just a rebalancing.
“Medicaid coverage is supposed to be reserved for the most vulnerable Americans,” he added.
Larson, again framed that as a cruel cut.
“I want to live in a country where our elected officials spend most of their energy trying to solve real problems,” Larson wrote. “Instead, we have a Republican Party that would rather scapegoat the most vulnerable people among us while using the power of gov't to enrich their friends.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill are working on a new reconciliation plan that includes proposed changes to Medicaid.
Those changes would very likely mean changes for Wisconsin’s half of the Medicaid system as well, though no one knows just what changes yet.
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