Twenty-three years ago, President Bill Clinton and Senate Democrats canceled two weeks of the August recess to pass a major health care bill. They got nowhere.
Now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying the same thing with the GOP for the August break, and it may lead to the same result.
“I’m hoping for better this time,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday afternoon after saying earlier he was “very pessimistic” the GOP would succeed. In 1994, Democrats “kept us in and we didn’t accomplish anything.”
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We are 2 former Administrators of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, under Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush. Although we represent different political parties, we take pride in the accomplishments of these 2 programs, which collectively help millions of US residents get the health care they need.
Medicaid has become a major focus in the debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), because the proposed replacement bills go beyond the ACA into the underlying Medicaid program that was originally passed by Congress in 1965. As we have overseen the Medicaid program at various stages, we are familiar with its successes, its areas for improvement, its effect on state budgets, and its importance to millions of ordinary people who count on the program and will need it in the future.
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In the 1990s, there was plenty of teeth-gnashing by welfare reform opponents over changing the funding structure for cash assistance, implementing work requirements, and creating time limits – rhetoric that sounds eerily similar to much of the health reform coverage today.
Mostly absent from the welfare discussion was the role that earned income tax credits (EITC) would play in reform. Similarly, in the current health care debates over Medicaid changes there is a lack of any reference to proposed tax credits.
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