DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

 

Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, said he thinks the committee he has chaired tasked with trimming the federal budget, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, struck the right balance on the budget and on Medicaid.

“I carefully constructed with my committee the Medicaid portion, because we wanted to make sure the most vulnerable were taken care of – and so it’s really carefully constructed,” he said. “I talked with Kentucky hospitals, talked with CEOs … ,” he said, adding that he’d heard from a hospital official stating that the bill was something they could make work.

He spoke briefly with the Daily News on Wednesday about the proposed budget and constituent outreach.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposed budget will cause up to 10.3 million to lose Medicaid access by 2034. Asked how he’d reassure people concerned about Medicaid access in the new budget and about steps being taken to help people get that support, he said that those estimated to lose coverage are ineligible, illegal or able to work.

“We’re excited to protect the most vulnerable,” Guthrie said. “We exempt people that are pregnant, people who have substance use disorder, people who have mental disability, people that have physical disability – we say medically frail as determined by the Health Secretary … .”

Emily Beauregard, executive director at the not-for-profit Kentucky Voices for Health, said it would be inaccurate to say that any individual who falls into one of those categories will absolutely be exempt.

“… most people are going to have to prove a condition, and it’s in that process of having to prove something that people fall through the cracks,” she said, adding that it’s difficult to get paperwork filled out by providers, who usually will require payment to do so. “You need to have healthcare in order to be healthy enough to have that kind of stability in which you can fill out paperwork, you can go to work, you can do all the things that would be required to get coverage or maintain your coverage.”

Guthrie said that Medicaid enrollees have to be checked, but states aren’t doing it, and some stay on Medicaid after no longer qualifying; he added that there’s 4.8 million people “literally choosing not to work,” which isn’t fair to a working American taxpayer who must provide for them, he said. The CBO had used that number to quantify those who would lose insurance, though a February study by the health policy nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found fewer – about 2 million people – “not working due to retirement, inability to find work, or other reason.”

Guthrie said that states are covering people in the U.S. illegally; some states are using their own funds to do so, but generally, as it concerns immigrants without an eligible immigration status, Medicaid only funds emergency medical services, which is 0.4% of total medicaid spending, according to KFF.

Guthrie also addressed concerns over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves more than 41 million low-income people, according to USDA.

Guthrie stated that the bill does not say the SNAP benefits have to change – just the state has to pay some of the cost, like they do in Medicaid.

While the legislation doesn’t specifically state there would be changes to the benefit amount, it would still be expected to affect benefits, according to Melissa McDonald, executive director of Feeding Kentucky, and Jessica Klein, a policy associate of at the KY Center for Economic Policy who researches and studies food insecurity statewide, and particularly the SNAP program.

This is because the significant cost-share it’d impose on states would force the matter onto state legislatures to make budgetary decisions, which can result in reduced benefits and fewer people getting the benefits they are currently eligible for, according to the two. The budget also proposes to restrict the Thrifty Food Plan, meaning that benefits would no longer be adjusted for factors such as healthy food prices, according to the two.

Guthrie noted that the legislation requires states to pay based on their SNAP error rate, which he said is the problem, along with misuse. He added that, because the budget pays 100% of it, and the state administers it, “there’s some reason to believe that a lot of the errors and misuse of SNAP is because the states don’t have any investment in it.”

Guthrie stressed the need for SNAP benefits to go to the most vulnerable.

“… there are (…) people that absolutely desperately need food stamps, but there are also people that sell them to do other things with them, and we want states to be more vigorous, and we think that’s part of the plan, but it’s something we continue to listen to as the bill goes through the Senate … ,” Guthrie said.

Guthrie also addressed the attempts to engage him in dialogue by the hundreds who’ve protested locally against pauses, cuts and threats to services by the Trump administration, saying that he’s typically in Washington during the week and had been working on the bill.

“I think they’ve been to my office a few times and talked to members in my office,” he said.

At least a dozen protests have taken place in Bowling Green by the local unit of the Indivisible group since Trump’s inauguration, including outside his office. Protesters have unsuccessfully called for a Guthrie town hall.

Guthrie doesn’t have a town hall schedule, he said.

Asked how those seeking engagement could reach out, Guthrie said, “They can contact our office for sure.”

Horowitz reports for the Daily News through a partnership with Report for America.