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Kilili: US Senate, Obama will not allow Medicaid cuts to territories
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Posted on May 23 2012
By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter
Reporter
Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan (Ind-MP) said Monday that the Democrat-led Senate and President Barack Obama won’t allow U.S. territories to lose $6.3 billion in Medicaid funding that they worked so hard to be included in health care reform legislation.
“It’s not going to pass the Senate. It won’t allow the posturing of the House Republicans. The territorial delegates and their supporters have also reached out to the White House and they won’t allow these cuts to the already underserved population,” Sablan told Saipan Tribune.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed on May 10 a Republican bill that would slash Medicaid funding to the CNMI by $100 million and a total of $6.3 billion to all five U.S. territories, but delegates are hoping that the Democrat-led U.S. Senate will trash the proposal.
Sablan said Monday that the Republican proposal would actually result in $158 million in lost Medicaid funding for the CNMI over a 10-year span.
For low-income families and officials in the CNMI, a $158-million Medicaid funding cut in a 10-year period spells disaster at a time when household expenses are already high and the Commonwealth Health Corp. teeters on the brink of a shutdown due to lack of funding.
The Medicaid funding cut was part of the Republican Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act, H.R. 5652 or the fiscal year 2013 spending plan that Sablan said “reflects the majority’s unbalanced approach to deficit reduction.”
“They provide costly additional tax breaks for millionaires while finding savings by ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors, cutting food stamps, and taking away Medicaid from the territories,” he had said.
Medicaid is the federal health care program for low-income families. Some 14,700 people in the Marianas who cannot afford health insurance are eligible for hospital care, outpatient services, and prescription drugs through Medicaid.
