The Association for Community Affiliated Plans Pushes Back on Proposed Medicaid Cuts

27 Jun The Association for Community Affiliated Plans Pushes Back on Proposed Medicaid Cuts

The Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) has launched a massive advertising campaign imploring Republican senators from Medicaid expansion states to oppose any Medicaid cuts.

The message from ACAP: Medicaid is economically critical because it supports workers.

“Medicaid cuts will put millions of jobs at risk,” the advertisement says.

The television ads will be on the air in Colorado, Arizona, West Virginia, Ohio and Nevada — Republican swing states that expanded Medicaid. These states have at least one moderate Republican senator who has conveyed trepidations over changes to Medicaid.

The Association for Community Affiliated Plans represents Medicaid plans that administer the program for more than 20 million enrollees in 29 states.

“We are reminding Senators that protecting Medicaid protects workers and small businesses in their states — half of working people who rely on Medicaid for coverage work for small businesses,” said Margaret A. Murray (ACAP CEO) in a recent press release.

ACAP does not support the current bill from the Senate, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), stating in a letter that “because the BCRA makes massive cuts to federal Medicaid funding and does not protect plans from unsound rates, ACAP has no choice but to oppose this legislation.”

Medicaid has surfaced as one of the most challenging concerns of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Senators from expansion states do not want to responsible for their constituents losing coverage, while the other Senators don’t want to be rebuked for holding fast to conservative principles.

In a report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected the BCRA would lead to a reduction of 15 million Americans on Medicaid by 2026. The bill includes a $772 billion reduction in Medicaid funding for the poor and disabled.

The Better Care Reconciliation Act phases out the ACA’s Medicaid expansion starting in 2021, and would regress to pre-ACA levels by 2024.

Many moderate Republican senators, such as Rob Portman (Ohio) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), were promoting a 7-year phase out of additional federal funding for Medicaid expansion. Neither one of them has communicated how they would vote on the bill; however, last Friday, Senator Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said that he was in opposition to the bill in its current incarnation. Last weekend, Senator Ben Sasse from Nebraska said the bill doesn’t really repeal the ACA but is “largely a Medicaid reform package.”