The Medicaid cuts proposed by the Republicans leave patients and doctors fearing the worst

Melannie Bachman, 39, of Charleston, in South Carolina, is one of the patients who closely watch the republican bill to revise Medicaid which was brought to the house. She received a diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer – an aggressive form and difficult to deal with the disease – in 2021. She said she had to ask for Medicaid on several occasions and was only approved four months later, which meant that she had to pay several screenings while waiting.

Bachman no longer qualifies for Medicaid because she is without cancer. But it fears that the proposed revisions can make it more difficult for it or others in similar situations to covered again, or even make them completely abandon the process.

Bachman is still less than five years old depending on her diagnosis, and his doctors tell her that it is essential for her to continue to be monitored in case the cancer returns.

“This is one of the most difficult parts of this trip, in addition to fighting for your life,” said Bachman about Medicaid demand. “The request process, the determination of the coverage and the research moment, being someone who had no coverage.”

While the Republicans of the House have bargained on Tuesday on certain parts of a bill which offers deep cuts and new Restrictions in Medicaid, patients and doctors who count on the program said that they were preparing for the worst, in particular overwhelming administrative formalities and administrative obstacles that could prevent many people from receiving the care they need.

The legislation, introduced on Sunday by the Energy and Trade Committee, offers a series of changes in the health program, such as work requirements, patient co-paids for doctor visits, more difficult eligibility controls and the verification of citizenship. The panel began to score it on Tuesday and hopes to send it to the house completes this week, in order to pass the entire bill through the Memorial Day.

The legislation could lead to 8.6 million people losing coverage of Medicaid, according to a preliminary estimate of the Congressional Budget Office. More than 70 million people are currently obtaining health coverage as part of the program.

Changes would make some people ineligible for coverage due to work requirements. Certain groups, such as disabled people, pregnant women and people in prison or rehabilitation centers, would be exempt.

Others – in particular those covered by the expansion of Medicaid of the Act respecting affordable care – may be forced to abandon because they are faced with higher costs and additional documents to maintain their coverage.

The Republicans say they agree with the new rules – including Senator Josh Hawley, R -MO., Who has noticed publicly and repeatedly not to reduce the advantages of Medicaid.

“Based on the work requirement, the anti -fraud provisions – there will be coverage losses associated with this, which I agree,” Hawley told NBC News. Republicans propose to reduce spending to states that allow immigrants without proof of citizenship to be on Medicaid.

“But for people who are otherwise qualified, who are capable and who work and need Medicaid because they cannot otherwise afford health insurance, I am just opposed to reducing the advantages of these people,” he said.

When asked if he worries, the bureaucracy could eventually withdraw the beneficiaries of the legitimate coverage, Hawley minimized the perspective by saying that his priority was “simply no reductions in services”.

Medicaid’s provisions should allow the government to allow the government to allow more than $ 715 billion over 10 years, which the Republicans intend to use to pay an extension of President Donald Trump’s tax reductions before expiring at the end of this year.

Democrats argue that additional bureaucracy is a characteristic – not a bug – of the GOP plan.

Senator Ron Wyden, D-ear., The classification member of the finance committee who oversees Medicaid, said that the Republicans wanted to reject people from the program by putting the beneficiaries by “bureaucratic torture” that many will not be able to sail.

“All of this basic bureaucracy was deployed to prevent eligible people from covered,” said Wyden in an interview. “It would be one thing if they had found a model of fraud and abuse, and they were trying to uproot it. But what they do is target eligible people who are eligible for Medicaid now.”

“I think it’s really a contemptible thing,” he said.

The bill, as it was found before Tuesday’s markup, left aside some of the most controversial ideas that republican leaders had discussed – including the limits of the amount of medicaid that Medicaid can spend per person and that the states pay more for extensive coverage under the expansion of medicaid of the affordable care law, for which the federal government is currently paying 90%.

Dr. Adam Gaffney, an intensive care doctor and assistant medicine professor at the Harvard Medical School, said that the changes offered to eligibility, even the possibility of additional documents, will train people to pass the mesh and lose their coverage.

“You don’t need to be a doctor to realize that it’s dangerous,” said Gaffney. “If you are faced with several medical problems, the last thing you need to do is try to go through a lot of administrative formalities and jump through hoops and bureaucracy, and that is exactly what this legislation would do.”

People who want to work may not be able to health problems, lack of child care or limited transport options.

When people lose the cover, they generally have no other options, said Gaffney. He noted that in the early 2000s, when Tennessee implemented reforms to brake the costs of Medicaid, thousands of people lost coverage.

“Most people who have lost Medicaid are not insured,” he said. “The reality is that MedicaID covers some of the least returned people in the country, and when they lose coverage, they will probably not be able to afford it.”

Likewise, in Georgia, following the implementation of Medicaid’s work requirements in 2023, fewer people have chosen to register, said Robin Rudowitz, director of the Medicaid program and not assured in Kff, a research group on health policies.

“Basically, the reports and having to document that you work, or even if you are a group that could be exempt from requirements, it is sometimes difficult to document that you could be in one of these groups,” she said.

Senator Cory Booker, DN.J. said that the new rules were part of a “cruel” and “craven” plot.

“Any additional bureaucracy will take people who rightly use these services and make them more difficult for them to continue, which will result in a loss of coverage – again, for Americans who have diseases and diseases,” said Booker.

Rudowitz said that the bill offers a provision that would require patient co -payment for people with up to 130% at 138% of the federal poverty level – around $ 35,000 per year for a family of three. There is also a provision, she said, which would reduce the amount that the federal government gives to the states if they ensure the coverage of undocumented immigrants.

If the bill erases the Chamber, he goes to the Senate, where some Republicans are looking at changes.

Senator Thom Tillis, RN.C., who sits on the finance committee, said that the Republicans were to closely examine the new Medicaid rules and the cover impacts.

“This is what we live now. Many of that has to do with the semi-annual and annual affirmation, that kind of thing. We had a lot of mechanics to work,” said Tillis, who faces a re-election next year in a purple state.

Tillis also said that he wanted to see how many Carolinians in the North were among the 8.6 million planned to lose the coverage. “If you look at this distribution across the country, it probably means considerable figures in North Carolina,” he said. “This false story that we will take this bill and pass it as proposed – we have a lot of work to do.”