Why Democrats warmed to severing Medicaid eligibility from the Covid public health emergency – By Alice Miranda Ollstein (Politico) / Dec 19, 2022
The Congressional Budget Office assumes the public health emergency for Covid will expire in July — barring another extension by the Biden administration.
Republicans have long demanded an end to the Covid-era Medicaid policy that gives states more funding and bars them from kicking people off the rolls. Now, Democrats are prepared to join them — four people close to the negotiations tell POLITICO.
Congressional negotiators are set to unveil the text of the 2023 omnibus spending bill on Monday. Lawmakers and staff have been scrambling for weeks to find ways to pay for a slew of health care programs, such as permanent telehealth flexibility, providing longer Medicaid coverage for new mothers and avoiding scheduled cuts to doctors’ payments, prompting formerly resistant Democratic members to take a fresh look at moving up the end-date of the Covid-19 Medicaid policy by at least three months — to April 1.
Doing so would decrease federal spending on Medicaid and allow states to remove ineligible people from the program, saving the government tens of billions of dollars. It also provides states more time to prepare for new rules that will put millions in jeopardy of losing their health insurance, something state Medicaid directors have been demanding from legislators.
CONTINUE > https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/19/democrats-medicaid-covid-00074563
