Is the GOP on the right track to revamping Medicaid?
The GOP is trying to revamp Medicaid in a number of ways including instituting block grants, adding in work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries and requiring recipients to take drug tests.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar testified before Congress on Thursday saying he was working with a number of states to institute block grants to cover Medicaid costs, effectively bypassing Congress' role in the matter.
The block grants would allow the states to have access to a block of money to cover the program as they see fit without continually taking money from the federal government.
However, some are not convinced that the block grants will be the cure-all that the GOP is looking for.
“One issue is you can't have states with radically different systems where Florida has low taxes so rich people come down here, but doesn't have good Medicaid so poor people move to New York. It's going to bankrupt New York, because they're going to lose their tax base and gain poor people,” Max Funds founder Jonas Max Ferris said on FOX Business' “Bulls & Bears” Friday.
Still, most people agree that the plan has merits by instituting requirements for people to qualify for the program, but the argument has been made that exceptions need to be made for those who are truly unable to work.
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People agree that healthcare has to be reformed in the United States. Democrats have been pushing for an expanded single payer healthcare system, but Republicans argue that such a system will bankrupt the U.S. even faster and block grants will help save the federal government money while providing adequate care.