New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) vigorously denounced Republican moves to slash Medicaid funding, which she said would “destroy health care as we know it” and hard-hit ordinary Americans seriously. In a Sunday appearance on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Lujan Grisham voiced alarm at the far-reaching implications potentially of the mooted cuts that she argued would devastate the healthcare system around the nation.
Lujan Grisham also highlighted the broader implications of these cuts, particularly the economic blow they would deal to businesses and to the communities they are based in. “This is quite literally an effort to unravel healthcare as we understand it,” the governor said. “It will drive up the price of healthcare for all people, and in doing so, it will have disastrous consequences for hospitals.”
The governor warned that Medicaid cuts would shut the doors of hundreds of hospitals across the United States, with some 432 already on the brink due to uncertainty in funding. Medicaid pays for approximately a third or more of the budgets of many hospitals. The governor emphasized that this type of change in funding would lead to fewer healthcare providers and limited access to medical treatment for millions of Americans.
No state, not even New Mexico, can afford this kind of cost shifting,” Lujan Grisham emphasized. “Businesses will be impacted because their employees will not have access to healthcare. It’s not healthcare—it’s the economy. The ripple effect is gigantic, and yet this critical part is not being discussed.”
As Medicaid’s federal funding is in jeopardy, Lujan Grisham assured that states, and by extension, New Mexico, are preparing to protect their own people. “All states are working as hard as they possibly can to help protect the folks that they’re serving,” she told reporters. Her statement arrives at a time when Congress persists in discussing what it will do regarding Medicaid financing, with controversy simmering during the coming weeks.
Regardless of the uncertainty, the governor was focused on immediate impacts of budget cuts and on the top priority of maintaining access to healthcare for vulnerable populations.
The battle over Medicaid cuts comes as the House Energy and Commerce Committee prepares to mark up and vote on the overhaul of the program. With negotiations still at an impasse, the proposed budget reconciliation is offering $880 billion in cuts-an amount most experts say would be impossible without cutting into Medicaid, a vital safety net for millions of Americans.
Republicans tend to favor more stringent work requirements, six-month registration verification checks, and barring those who entered the country illegally from being able to receive Medicaid benefits. The GOP is internally conflicted, though, on whether to seek a plan to directly reduce the expanded federal funding match for states that expanded Medicaid. The plan has been contentious, with moderates warning that it would put Medicaid’s viability at risk.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) indicated that the controversial proposal to reduce Medicaid’s Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) was not on the table, something that could potentially be a relief to Medicaid expansion supporters. However, there is still a major battle raging over whether to implement per capita caps on Medicaid expansion enrollees, a proposal that has been rebuffed by moderate legislators.
With both sides of politics in opposition to the cuts, the next few weeks will determine whether or not the intended cuts are enforced or whether compromise is achievable that balances the need for budget prudence with the undeniable worth of Medicaid to tens of millions of Americans. As the drama plays out, Governor Lujan Grisham and other state leaders remain resolute in their advocacy for protecting healthcare for their constituents, ringing alarm bells over the catastrophic impact cuts would have on healthcare access across the nation.