Medicaid was signed into law 60 years ago. Trump’s big bill is chiseling it back

By LISA MASCARO Associated Press Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON AP On this day in President Lyndon B Johnson signed decree into law that launched Medicaid creating a U S soundness care safety net for millions of low-income Americans in what would become one of the crowning achievements of his domestic legacy FILE President Lyndon B Johnson uses the last of plenty of pens to complete the signing of the Medicare Bill into law at the Truman Library in Independence Missouri July with former President Harry S Truman at his side At rear are Lady Bird Johnson Vice President Hubert Humphrey and former first lady Bess Truman AP Photo File A year earlier he did the same for food stamps drawing on President John F Kennedy s first executive order for the growth of a positive food and nutrition undertaking for all Americans This summer with the stroke of a pen President Donald Trump began to chisel them back The Republican Party s big tax and spending bill delivered not just trillion in tax breaks for Americans but certain of the the greater part substantial changes to the landmark safety net programs in their history The trade-off will cut more than trillion over a decade from federal fitness care and food assistance largely by imposing work requirements on those receiving aid and by shifting certain federal costs onto the states While Republicans in Congress argue the trims are needed to rightsize the federal programs that have grown over the decades and to prevent rising federal deficits they are also moving toward a long-sought GOP goal of shrinking the federal establishment and the services it provides We re making the first changes to the welfare state in generations House Speaker Mike Johnson mentioned in a contemporary podcast interview As the tax breaks and spending cuts law begins to take shape it is unleashing a new era of uncertainty for the safety net programs that millions of people in communities across the nation have grown to depend on with political ramifications to come Big safety net changes ahead Polling shows majority U S adults don t think the executive is overspending on the programs Americans broadly aid increasing or maintaining existing levels of funding for popular safety net programs including Social Defense and Medicare according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Populace Affairs Research Local governments are scrambling to figure out how they will comply with the new landscape calculating whether they will need to raise their own taxes to cover costs trim budgets elsewhere or cut back the aid provided to Americans Pediatrician Irving Phillips left examines a -month-old boy at a CommuniCARE OLE clinic Thursday June in Davis Calif AP Photo Godofredo A V squez The cuts are really big they are really broad and they are deeply damaging declared Sharon Parrott president of the Center for Budget and Agenda Priorities a research institute in Washington The consequences are millions of people losing soundness care coverage she revealed Millions of people losing food assistance And the net consequence of that is higher poverty more hardship At the same time certain people who receive aid including parents of teenagers and older Americans up to age will have to prepare to work engage in classes or do society function for hours a month to meet new requirements All communicated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates million more people will end up without wellness insurance Particular million fewer people will participate in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Activity known as SNAP People are really concerned what this means for their fiscal strength reported Mark Ritacco chief governmental affairs officer at the National Association of Counties which held its annual conference the week after Trump signed the bill into law The organization had pushed senators to delay the start dates for certain Medicaid changes and it hopes that further conversations with lawmakers in Congress can prevent selected of them from ever taking hold At its conference questions swirled We re talking about Medicaid and SNAP these are people s lives and livelihoods Ritacco commented GOP bill trims back strength care and food aid Republicans insist the law is adhering to Trump s vow not to touch Medicaid as the changes root out waste fraud and abuse A memo from the House GOP s campaign arm encourages lawmakers to focus on the popularity of its new work requirements and restrictions on benefits for certain immigrants Those safety nets are meant for a small population of people the elderly disabled young pregnant women who are single the House speaker reported on The Benny Show He disclosed the years since the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare came into law everybody got on the wagon All these young able-bodied young men who don t have dependents riding the wagon the speaker explained Medicaid then and now When President Johnson established Medicaid alongside Medicare the vitality care undertaking for seniors as part of the Social Safety Amendments of it was meant for low-income families as well as the disabled Related Articles Trump announces tariff on India and unspecified penalties for buying Russian oil Trump says Epstein stole young women from Mar-a-Lago spa including Virginia Giuffre Trump Environmental Protection Agency moves to repeal finding that allows atmosphere regulation Governing body shutdown talk is starting early ahead of a arduous funding fight in Congress this fall States file lawsuit against Trump administration over efforts to collect SNAP recipients information And it fleetly took off Almost every state signed on to participate in Medicaid by according to the KFF an organization focused on soundness protocol It soon went beyond covering its core population to include pregnant women school-age children and not just the very poor but also those with incomes just over the federal poverty limit which is now about annually for a single person and for a family of three In the years since the Affordable Care Act became law under President Barack Obama Medicaid has grown substantially as the greater part states opted to join the federal expansion Selected million adults and children are covered While the uninsured population has tumbled the federal costs of providing Medicaid have also grown to more than billion a year There are a lot of effects Medicaid has on robustness but the the majority stark thing that it does is that it saves lives disclosed Bruce D Meyer an economist and population strategy professor at the University of Chicago who co-authored a pivotal assessment assessing the undertaking The law s changes will certainly save the federal authorities a substantial amount of money he commented but that will come at substantial increases in mortality And you have to decide what you value more Food stamps which had been offered toward the end of the Great Depression but were halted during World War II amid rationed supplies launched as a federal campaign when Johnson signed the Food Stamp Act of into law Currently SNAP provides almost in monthly benefits per person to a few million recipients nationwide Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries who delivered the longest speech in House history while trying to stall the bill commented the changes will hurt households and communities nationwide Who are these people Jeffries noted Ripping fitness care away from the American people The largest cuts in Medicaid in American history Ripping food out of the mouths of children seniors and veterans who are going to go hungry as a aftermath of this one big ugly bill