Senate Republicans are working to change a House GOP tax plan to require fewer cuts in Medicaid health benefits for the poor and disabled, seeking to mollify members of the party worried about a public backlash. The move, which is not finalized, also pares back requirements for other spending cuts but risks alienating deficit hawks in both the Senate and the House. Fiscal conservatives in the party want steep spending cuts to help offset the multi-trillion-dollar tax-cut package.
Rural hospitals and primary care physicians' incomes would likely go down if Medicaid patients are no longer able to afford the same level of healthcare, potentially leading to reductions in services offered for everyone or even closures, according to experts.
The Trump administration Thursday announced a major restructuring of HHS that will cut 20,000 full-time jobs. The cuts include employees who have taken the Trump administration's Fork in the Road offer and early retirement, plus an additional reduction in force of 10,000 jobs. It will take the HHS workforce from 82,000 to 62,000, according to a news release from the agency. The restructuring also includes a reorganization of the department's many divisions to reduce them from 28 to 15.
The country's largest public pension fund claims in an amended lawsuit that UnitedHealth Group's leaders have hid the company's illegal behavior for years — even as damning media reports and government investigations emerged as recently as last month — so they could continue to make millions from selling stock.
The House's plan to cut government spending, including on Medicaid, to help pay for the extension of tax cuts is already hitting snags. The House budget resolution, which sets broad plans for GOP efforts to cut taxes, directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut government spending by $880 billion over a decade. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said hitting that target would require significant cuts to Medicaid.
A Yale University economist contends the proposed merger of Union Health and Terre Haute Regional Hospital would not be good for consumers. Zack Cooper, an associate professor at Yale and the director of the university's Tobin Center for Economic Policy, in a news release sent Tuesday contends the merger would raise commercial health care prices of the two entities 10% to 30%, raise local insurance premiums by 3% to 10%, and lower nurses’ wages by approximately 5%.