The possibility of deep discounts for Medical aidThe United States government program to provide health care for low -income people has become a flash point in Congress where the leaders of both parties accuse their counterparts of lying.

Hakim JeffrezOn February 27, the Democratic Party leader in the House of Representatives said that conducting the budget of the Republic “will move the largest discount to a city in American history” and that the Republicans are hiding the consequences.

“Republicans are lying to the American people about Madikid,” said Jeffrez. “I can’t say this in any other way. Republicans are lying. I have been mistaken.”

Republicans said that the Democrats were distorting the Republican budget. “The word” Midikid “is not even in this law,” said Congress member Steve Scales.

“The Democrats were lying on this issue,” Parliament Speaker Mike Johnson said on CNN.

Republicans are looking for huge budget savings to achieve their goal of extending President Donald Trump in full 2017 Tax discounts. This is a separate process from the Congress need to pass a continuous decision to maintain the operation of the government by Friday or to face the closure of the federal government.

Here is what we know so far about the potential Medicaid discounts.

The Republican Budget Plan in the House of Representatives seeks to obtain $ 880 billion in discounts

Medicaid serves about one in five Americans. The health care program is paid by the federal government and partly by the states. Louisiana, the home of Johnson and Scalise, has one of the highest state rates from Medicaid registered.

The Republican Budget Plan, which was adopted on February 25, opens the door to lower Medicaid although it is not called the program.

The plan directed the Energy and Trade Committee in the House of Representatives to find ways to reduce the deficit of at least $ 880 billion during the next decade.

The committee has a specialty on medicaid, Medical care The Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip) in addition to much smaller programs. Chip provides low -cost health coverage for children in families that earn a lot of money to qualify to get Medicaid.

Republicans have excluded discounts in the Medicare program, a health insurance program for the elderly, which the leaders made in their political danger. Medicare is about 15 percent of the federal budget, and the Madekid is about 8.6 percent.

When Medicare is allocated, Medicaid represents 93 percent of funding under the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee, he found a non -partisan Congress budget office in March 5 analysis. This means that it is impossible for the committee to find enough discounts that do not affect Medicaid.

“It is imagination to mean that federal assistance in the field of medical aid will not be deeply reduced,” said Alison Uris, an expert in the medical aid policy at the Budget and Policy Research Center, a left -wing research tank.

After the Medicaid program, the next big program under the committee’s jurisdiction is Chip. Joan Alker, an expert at Midikid and Shayb at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, said that the legislators do not seem to be planning a chip, but even if they did so, they will only be “a small part of the road to there.”

Larry Levitt, Executive Vice President of Health Policy at KFF, a health policy organization, said if the discounts in Medicare are outside the table, the only way to achieve $ 880 billion of savings is through major discounts in the field of Medicaid.

Andy Schneider, Professor at Georgetown, who worked in the administration of former President Barack Obama as a first adviser to Medicare & Medicaid service centers, said even if the committee completely canceled all other programs, it can achieve only 381 billion dollars in savings – about 43 percent of the goal.

“In short, if they do not want to cut Medicaid [or CHIP]Schneider said the goal of reducing $ 880 billion is impossible.

Cut 880 billion dollars is not an expired deal. Republicans in the House of Representatives were able to pass their budget package, but Republicans in the Senate are taking a different approach and did not suggest these important cuts.

Any final budget scheme will need to buy Republicans in the Senate. Senator Josh Hawly is among the Republicans who spoke against potential discounts. “I will not make severe discounts in Medicaid,” he told HuffPost.

Joe Antos, a health care expert at the American Conservative Institute for Institutions, said the numbers are starting points that may lead to negotiation between the Republicans, at least. He said: “We are far from the final legislation, so it is not possible to predict the extent of the reduction of any program.”

“If the bill also includes an extension [Trump 2017] Tax discounts, perhaps we are months away from seeing a real language.

Once the House of Representatives and the Senate reach an agreement on the language and the decision passes the decision, the committees will work on detailed discounts. Not such discounts, both councils will need to agree to a separate invoice and receive Trump’s signature.

Why eliminate fraud does not solve the problem

Republican leaders have stated concerns about medicaid discounts by talking about a different goal: medicaid scam.

“I will not touch on social security, medicare, medicaid. Now, we will get a fraud from there,” Trump He said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday, in line with his campaign in his campaign that he would protect these programs.

At the same time, Trump praised the decision of the house that would likely make the discounts: “The decision of the home implement the full American agenda, everything, and not only parts of it!” He said in a post on social media.

Will the elimination of fraud turn the problem of medical aid? no.

CNN, Johnson said that cutting fraud, waste and ill -treatment would lead to “part of the savings to accomplish this task.” He said that the government is losing 50 billion dollars annually from Madikid payments “only in fraud alone.”

But Johnson created “fraud” with “improper payments”. The government accounting office, a non -party investigation arm, who studies the use of public funds, has found about $ 50 billion in inappropriate payments in Medicaid and the same amount in Medicare in 2023.

These incorrect payments were made in an incorrect amount (excess or payment), or it was not possible to make missing or insufficient documents. But this does not mean that there are $ 50 billion in medical aid fraud, which would include obtaining something through deliberate distortion.

Schneider said that the system used to determine improper payments is not designed to measure fraud, so we do not know the percentage of incorrect payments that were losses due to fraud.

In addition, it is a decrease in the total Aquarius for the possible amount of $ 880 billion in discounts.