FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
St. Paul, MN — The health and well-being of nearly 1.4 million Minnesotans – from babies to elderly folks and from students needing mental health services to people living with disabilities – are at risk if federal policymakers proceed with an agenda to severely cut Medicaid funding and health benefits.
More than 130 organizations representing Minnesota’s health care providers, nonprofit health insurers, patient services advocates, direct service organizations, and consumer and worker representatives signed a letter on Dec. 20, 2024, to Minnesota’s 10 members of Congress asking them to oppose harmful changes to Medicaid funding and eligibility.
“We are united in our recognition of Medical Assistance as a vital part of Minnesota’s nation-leading health care infrastructure,” health care advocates state. “Any major changes will fundamentally restructure our state-federal Medicaid partnership and will end the guaranteed access to care for millions of Minnesotans.”
Even before the new Congress gavels in on January 3, policymakers are considering policy options that threaten to take health care away from millions of Americans, potentially as “pay-fors” for extending large tax cuts in the expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Whether through direct funding cuts to Medicaid or through changing the funding formula to block grants, the ideas being considered by some policymakers would take vital health care and support services away from people who are currently getting care through Medicaid.
In Minnesota, nearly 1.4 million people across the state – including children, adults living on low incomes, people with disabilities, and elderly people — get health care through Medicaid, referred to as Medical Assistance (MA). Medical Assistance ensures people of all ages who do not get health insurance from their employers and cannot afford to pay for private health insurance can get the care and services they need, when they need them.
Medicaid has been a vital safety net for more than 50 years, offering all types of services: prenatal and birth services, children’s preventative and emergency care, student mental health services in schools, affordable health care for folks between jobs, people living with disabilities, and elderly folks in nursing homes.
Should federal policymakers reduce or restrict the amount of federal funding the state receives for Medicaid, state policymakers would need to grapple with a massive budget hole to ensure more than one million Minnesotans receive the preventative, emergency, and long-term care they need.
Eight years ago, advocates for health care and other safety net programs came together to fight cuts to Medicaid through repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Once again, Minnesota advocates are renewing their commitment to join across issues and priorities to ensure Congress does not take away health care from more than a million Minnesotans.
Unlike in 2017, when policymakers threatened to repeal the ACA, Medicaid cuts in 2025 will likely come through changes in eligibility, changes in rules that states currently can use to provide what their residents need, or changes in how federal funds are released to the states. Any of those changes would result in severe restrictions on who can get health care and when.
National and state advocates are watching for a budget resolution announcement in early January, which will signal the top priorities for the incoming Congress and Administration.
Background information:
Use by Minnesota Congressional District: Medicaid or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program)
- 1st District: 14.6 percent, or 82,900 people
- 2nd District: 11.6 percent, or 71,500 people
- 3rd District: 12.6 percent, or 71,400 people
- 4th District: 19.8 percent, or 115,000 people
- 5th District: 19.4 percent, or 117,100 people
- 6th District: 14.9 percent, or 94,400
- 7th District: 18.2 percent, or 101,500 people
- 8th District: 19.6 percent, or 110,100 people
Source from Georgetown Center for Children and Families (2023)
What is Medicaid?
Medicaid is a public insurance program started in 1965 to provide health care for low-income families and individuals, including children, parents, pregnant people, seniors, and people with disabilities; it is funded jointly by the federal government and the states. Medicaid covers health care for a wide range of people, ensuring they can get essential health care when they need it.
Technical provisions that could be used to take health care away from Minnesotans:
Restrictions to funding: per capita caps or block grant funding – instead of meeting health care needs for people who need it during an economic downturn or a pandemic when need for care surges, these types of changes would put a cap on funding to states, leaving states on their own to meet the actual health care needs of those who most need it.
Restrictions to eligibility: limiting who can get the care they need, through tactics like work reporting requirements. These tactics are falsely based on assumptions that people who get health care through Medicaid don’t work, when in fact 2 out of 3 adult enrollees work, and those who don’t have a disability, are care givers, or are in school.
Reducing the amount of funding states receive: changing the ratio of funding between the federal government and states, significantly altering the decades-old partnership and commitment to ensuring people can get the health care they need, when they need it. The federal match for the 40 states with expanded coverage for low-income adults also could be reduced.