New life seen for Medicaid plan after GOP’s health care debacle
NKorean leader briefed on missile-launch plan
WASHINGTON — North Korea says leader Kim Jong-Un was briefed on his military’s plans to launch missiles in waters near Guam days after the Korean People’s Army announced it was preparing to create “enveloping fire” near the U.S. military hub in the Pacific.
The Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday that Kim during an inspection of the KPA’s Strategic Forces praised the military for drawing up a “close and careful” plan. Kim said he will give order for the missile test if the United States continues its “extremely dangerous actions” on the Korean Peninsula.
The KPA’s Strategic Forces said last week says it would finalize by midAugust a plan to fire four intermediate ballistic missiles near Guam and send it to Kim for his approval
California joins ‘sanctuary’ lawsuits for grants
CHICAGO — California has joined several cities and counties in suing the federal government over federal public safety money that the White House has threatened to withhold amid a clash over sanctuary policies.
The state filed a lawsuit Monday challenging sanctuary city restrictions on public safety grants. At least seven cities and counties are also suing over funding threats, including Chicago, which filed a complaint last week.
The Trump administration has said it’s following through on promises to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities.
But the result for some has been growing confusion, budgeting headaches, worries about increased crime and more tension with immigrant residents.
Trump seeks probe by his trade office of China’s practices
BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Even as he seeks Beijing’s help on North Korea, President Donald Trump asked his trade office on Monday to consider investigating China for the alleged theft of American technology and intellectual property.
Trump, in the midst of a 17-day vacation, left his New Jersey golf club to return to the White House to sign an executive action on the probe. He suggested that more steps would be taken against China on trade issues.
“This is just the beginning — I want to tell you that,” Trump said. “This is just the beginning.”
There is no deadline for deciding if any investigation is necessary. Such an investigation easily could last a year.
WASHINGTON — It may not equal Social Security and Medicare as a “third rail” program that politicians touch at their own risk, yet Medicaid seems to have gotten stronger after the Republican failure to pass health care legislation.
Reviled by conservatives, the 1960s Great Society program started out as health insurance for families on welfare and disabled people. But the link to welfare was broken long ago, and the federal-state program has grown to cover about 1 in 5 Americans, ranging from newborns to Alzheimer’s patients in nursing homes, and even young adults trying to shake addiction. Although Medicaid still serves low-income people, middle-class workers are more likely to personally know someone who’s covered.
Increased participation — and acceptance — means any new GOP attempt to address problems with the Affordable Care Act would be unlikely to achieve deep Medicaid cuts.
“This was an important moment to show that people do understand and appreciate what Medicaid does,” said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, a nonpartisan group that represents state officials. “The more people understand what Medicaid is and what it does for them, the less interested they are in seeing it undermined.”
With Republicans in control of the White House, both chambers of Congress, and 34 out of 50 governorships, it would have been hard to imagine a more politically advantageous alignment for a conservative overhaul of Medicaid.
President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to cover more low-income adults, many of them working jobs without health insurance. Thirty-one states have accepted the ACA’s expansion, covering about 11 million people.
The GOP bills would have phased out funding for Obama’s expansion, and also placed a limit on future federal spending for the entire program — a step now seen as overreach. Spending caps in the House and Senate bills translated to deep cuts that divided Republicans.
And GOP governors who had expanded the program couldn’t swallow the idea of denying coverage to hundreds of thousands of constituents. Some went public with their opposition, while others quietly warned their congressional delegations about dire consequences.
Medicaid “is not yet at the Medicare and Social Security level because it isn’t framed as something that you contribute to during your working years and you get it later as a commitment,” said Diane Rowland of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “But I think there is a recognition that for all its flaws ... it’s really the nation’s health care safety net.”
An AP-NORC poll taken last month found the public overwhelmingly opposed to GOP Medicaid cuts, by 62-22.
“You just can’t do this to people who are in situations that they didn’t put themselves in,” said Sara Hayden of Half Moon Bay, California. Unable to work as a data journalist due to complications of rheumatoid arthritis, she was able to get health insurance when her state expanded Medicaid.
Hayden estimates that one of the medications she takes would cost about $16,000 a month if she were uninsured. She pays nothing with Medi-Cal, as the Medicaid program is known in California.
“If they are going to repeal and replace, then I am dead in the water,” she said.
Brian Kline of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, works as a customer service representative, and got coverage after his state expanded Medicaid in 2015. Early last year he was diagnosed with colon cancer. After treatment that Medicaid paid for, his last CT scan was clear.
“You just wonder if the Republican bill had passed ... what would have happened to me?” said Kline. “Would I have had access to my doctors and the tests to make sure my cancer didn’t come back? I’m not sure what the answer to that question would have been.”