The full dimensions of the GOP’s self-defeat on health care will emerge over time, but one immediate consequence is giving up block grants for Medicaid. This transformation would have put the program on a budget for the first time since it was created in 1965, and the bill’s opponents ought to be held accountable for the rising spending that they could have prevented.
The members of the House Freedom Caucus who killed ObamaCare’s repeal and replacement claim to be fiscal hawks. Most of them support a balanced budget amendment. Yet they gave zero credit to a reform that would have restored Medicaid—a safety net originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled—to its original, more limited purposes.
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