“I think there’s things we can do that are even revenue neutral to make the system much more like everyone having a healthcare card under the Medicaid program,” said Negron.
Ultra low-income Floridians receive healthcare coverage as a result of a collaborative effort on the part of the federal government and the state of Florida to fund Medicaid. In this partnership, the federal government currently provides approximately 60% of funding, and Negron admits that some people would, indeed, lose benefits under a Medicaid block grant program, though it is not his goal to reduce benefits. Rather, his proclaimed goal is to incentivize cost reduction as opposed to, like Obamacare, incentivizing greater spending.
Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has been an avid proponent of the block grant solution. This week, in fact, he enumerated countless problems with Obamacare in a town hall meeting, shouting over the noise of protesters outside. His primary criticism was that Obama shouldn’t have allowed able-bodied people without children to benefit from Medicaid because it increased costs for the states. This is why he comfortably said he believes there are people on Medicaid now who won’t be after Obamacare is replaced. For those that keep their Medicaid-managed insurance, he said Republicans are striving to provide more options and “health savings accounts to create more agency within the individual to make more decisions about healthcare.”
