According to The Washington Post, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is certain that the cuts in Medicaid planned in the Senate health care bill are never going to happen.
Paige Winfield Cunningham of the Post writes:
What McConnell has told several hesitant senators (including Portman and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.): The bill’s deepest Medicaid cuts are far into the future, and they’ll never go into effect anyway. “He’s trying to sell the pragmatists like Portman, like Capito on ‘the CPI-U will never happen,’” a GOP lobbyist and former Hill staffer told me.
The current version of the Senate health-care bill would prompt federal Medicaid spending to plunge 26% – but that means nothing, considering Congress’ dallying when it comes to cutting entitlements. As Cunningham notes, “After all, that’s what Congress did for years by enacting the so-called “Doc Fix” to a Medicare doctors’ payment formula.”
The Senate health care bill, according to the Congressional Budget office, includes over $700 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid. Republicans have added $70 billion to a stabilization fund to help lower-income people pay for medical costs.
Even The New York Times admitted, “There is some evidence that Medicaid programs enroll some people who are not eligible and sometimes cover some services that are not medically necessary.”