Who would kick millions off health insurance in the middle of a pandemic? Yes, Trump.
In the midst of a pandemic — when Americans most need health insurance, and millions can’t find work — the Trump administration wants to kick Americans off their health insurance if they aren’t working.
Heartless, but it’s true.
This week, the Trump administration and the state of Arkansas asked the Supreme Court to allow reinstatement of Medicaid work requirements. This disastrous policy was struck down by lower courts last year after causing 18,000 low-income Arkansans to lose their insurance. Subsequent research found that 95 percent of residents targeted by the policy were working, or had qualified for an exemption. They were kicked off Medicaid all the same.
That’s because the program’s reporting requirements were so onerous and confusing that it was nearly impossible to prove compliance.
These efforts to erect artificial barriers to safety-net services that Americans are legally entitled to, and desperately need, are of apiece with other Trump regulatory actions.
President Trump claims to favor slashing red tape and bureaucracy. He boasts about his “historic deregulation.” Yet his administration has repeatedly raised regulatory costs for disfavored groups or perceived enemies (poor people, immigrants, media companies). It has been especially active in heightening administrative burdens as a backdoor way to limit access to safety-net programs, even when Congress rejected proposals to cut these programs directly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-would-kick-millions-off-health-insurance-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic-yes-trump/2020/07/16/ed7c72ee-c799-11ea-a99f-3bbdffb1af38_story.html
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