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It may be tempting to ignore the cuts to health coverage programs in the FY2020 POTUS Budget released today, but they’re worth paying attention to 1/
The Budget continues to embrace the Graham-Cassidy-Johnson-Heller proposal to repeal Medicaid expansion & ACA subsidies, replace them with a flawed & inadequate block grant, & impose a per-capita cap on the rest of Medicaid – cutting $659 billion/10 years from these programs 2/
A reminder that Graham-Cassidy also ends the ACA’s nationwide protections for people with pre-existing conditions (the Budget says people with pre-existing conditions would be unharmed b/c states would have to submit plans for protecting them) cbpp.org/research/healt… 3/
New this year, the Budget also proposes to take coverage away from adult Medicaid enrollees NATIONWIDE if they don’t meet work requirements. It estimates this would cut Medicaid by $130 billion/10 years, presumably due to coverage losses 4/
. @KaiserFamFound estimated that a nationwide Medicaid work requirement would cause up to 4M people to lose coverage, with most of them losing coverage due to paperwork and red tape kff.org/medicaid/issue… 5/ 
And those estimates predated Arkansas’ Medicaid work requirement, which caused more than 1 in 5 of those subject to the policy to lose coverage in the first seven months: cbpp.org/blog/medicaid-… 6/
Among those at particular risk from these policies: working people, people with disabilities, and others who supposedly aren’t the targets: cbpp.org/medicaid-brief… 7/
Groups including @AmerMedicalAssn, @AmerAcadPeds, @ACPinternists recently made clear what’s at stake, explaining how these policies will worsen health and financial security, and can impede work: cbpp.org/blog/health-ca… 8/
The Budget also repeats other proposals from last year that would make it harder for people to get or stay covered through Medicaid and the ACA marketplaces: cbpp.org/research/healt… 9/
These proposals won’t be enacted in the near term, but they matter b/c (1) they clarify what the Admin is trying to achieve through executive actions on health care & (2) they should dispel any illusion that the Admin has set aside ACA repeal out of conviction v. necessity 10/10
