GOP/HEALTHCARE/MEDICARE/OBAMACARE(ACA): “Senate Republicans, scrambling to win support for their health-care bill, pushed a measure Thursday [7-20-17] that they said could ease the impact of the bill’s Medicaid cuts on low-income people.
Advocating for the new direction is a little-known health official who is now at the center of the health-care fight: Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the two federal medical programs.
Ms. Verma has recently become ubiquitous on Capitol Hill, meeting with wavering senators one-on-one, speaking to groups of Republicans and citing her experience as an Indiana state official to argue the GOP proposals can work.
The Medicaid plan that is being advanced by some Republicans and Ms. Verma would use funds from the Affordable Care Act’s taxes to cut out-of-pocket costs for people who are forced to leave Medicaid due to cutbacks in the Republican bill.
It wasn’t clear Thursday whether Ms. Verma’s pitch would attract any of the GOP senators who said they were opposed to an earlier version of the bill, let alone enough to let the bill squeak through. But at least one senator who has voiced concerns about the bill’s Medicaid cuts said Ms. Verma has taken a careful approach by providing data without overselling her proposal.”
-Louise Radnofsky and Kristina Peterson, “GOP Floats Proposal to Ease Medicaid Cuts,” The Wall Street Journal online, July 20, 2017 07:53pm