Kate Zernike, Abby Goodnough, and Pam Belluck report at The New York Times that Medicaid survived the Trumpcare fiasco.
Medicaid now provides medical care to four out of 10 American children. It covers the costs of nearly half of all births in the United States. It pays for the care for two-thirds of people in nursing homes. And it provides for 10 million children and adults with physical or mental disabilities. For states, it accounts for 60 percent of federal funding — meaning that cuts hurt not only poor and middle-class families caring for their children with autism or dying parents, but also bond ratings.
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Representative [Chris] Smith of New Jersey said he was voting no because of concerns about the impact on people with disabilities, who make up just 15 percent of all Medicaid recipients but account for 42 percent of spending, making them particularly vulnerable to cuts.
For millions of disabled people, Medicaid covers services provided at home or through local programs — aides who help them walk, eat and bathe, for example, and physical and speech therapy — that allow them to stay out of institutions, where care is often more expensive. But those services are optional for states, while the cost of institutional care is not. The law would have given states an incentive to place them in institutions.
