Trump Admin Flip On Tribal Medicaid Rules Angers Congress
Source: Talking Points Memo
By Alice Ollstein | May 8, 2018 4:14 pm
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are pushing back forcefully against the Trump administration’s new position on whether Native Americans can be forced to comply with Medicaid work requirements, telling TPM that allowing individual states to make that call is a “disaster” with serious “constitutional problems.”
The Trump administration’s lead Medicaid official Seema Verma said Monday in a speech to the American Hospital Association that HHS is dropping its previous claim that giving tribal members any kind of exemption from Medicaid work requirements “could raise civil rights issues,” because it would be an illegal racial preference.
“We believe we can give states flexibility and discretion to implement the community engagement requirements with respect to local tribal members,” Verma said. “We look forward to working with states and tribes to try to help them achieve their goals and determine how to best apply community engagement to serve their populations.”
But Republican and Democratic lawmakers say this new stance is just as bad, if not worse, than the administration’s original position.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-admin-cant-pass-the-buck-to-states-on-making-native-americans-work-for-their-health-care
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“We believe we can give states flexibility and discretion to implement the community engagement requirements with respect to local tribal members" said Veema
Do you remember seeing this Veema and the state being given "flexibilty and discreation " here look at this...................the tribe didn't get to much "respect" did it
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/nov/21/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-water-cannon-video
