The liberals and media are portraying the Medicaid reforms (work requirements and eligibility verifications) as cruel and regressive.

This chart from CEI shows the Medicaid trajectory turned sharply upwards when Biden made COVID-era increases permanent. The reconciliation bill helps bend the spending curve slightly, but nowhere near where it was:

Senator Rick Scott has proposed an amendment that would address the biggest cost driver that the latest version of the bill leaves intact.

Currently, for every dollar of state Medicaid spending on children, pregnant women, the disabled, and the elderly, the federal government matches with $1.33 – but for an able-bodied, working-age adult, the federal match is $9 per dollar of state spending.

As we’ve shouted out before in the HOTLINE: this perversely incentivizes states to waste money on health care. No wonder the program costs keep escalating.

Under Rick Scott’s amendment, new enrollees in Medicaid starting in 2031 (why not sooner?), the overmatch would be eliminated.

Senator Thune supports the amendment and says he doesn’t know how Republicans “couldn’t be in favor of it.” Senator Josh Hawley opposes it.