DL Open Thread: Friday, May 26, 2023

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on May 26, 2023

Red State MAGAts Can’t Dump People Off Medicaid Fast Enough:

Hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost Medicaid coverage in recent weeks as part of a sprawling unwinding of a pandemic-era policy that prohibited states from removing people from the program.

Early data shows that many people lost coverage for procedural reasons, such as when Medicaid recipients did not return paperwork to verify their eligibility or could not be located. The large number of terminations on procedural grounds suggests that many people may be losing their coverage even though they are still qualified for it. Many of those who have been dropped have been children.

So far, at least 19 states have started to remove people from the rolls. A precise total of how many people have lost coverage is not yet known.

In Arkansas, more than 1.1 million people — over a third of the state’s residents — were on Medicaid at the end of March. In April, the first month that states could begin removing people from the program, about 73,000 people lost coverage, including about 27,000 children 17 and under.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, a Republican, has framed the unwinding as a necessary process that will save money and allow Medicaid to function within its intended scope.

“We’re simply removing ineligible participants from the program to reserve resources for those who need them and follow the law,” Ms. Sanders wrote in an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal this month. She added that “some Democrats and activist reporters oppose Arkansas’s actions because they want to keep people dependent on the government.”

Remember, kids, inflicting pain is the goal.

TPM’s Josh Marshall: Debt Ceiling Deal May Not Be So Bad.  He once again emphasizes that there should have been no negotiation at all.  However:

There are cuts that bring the numbers in a bit under 2023 levels. But they make up that money but taking $10 billion from the $80 billion of expanded funding for the IRS. Taking $10 billion away from the increased funding for the IRS allows Republicans to say they clawed back some of the money going to that mythical army of IRS “agents” who are going to harass ordinary working folk. That’s not great. But $10 billion off the $80 billion leaves the great bulk of the funding intact and it basically protects key social spending

There are two additional provisions which, if they pan out, seem key. The debt ceiling is raised into 2025, so out past the next election. The deal also prevents Republicans from coming back for another bite at the apple later this year when it comes time to put together an actual budget. That’s always been one of the huge risks here. You’re forced to agree to ruinous cuts and then Republicans come back in 4 or 5 months to extort more cuts, this time with the threat of a government shutdown. This prevents that second bite at the apple and basically rules out the possibility of a government shutdown later this year.

The Red State War On Blue Cities. Nashville, Memphis, Houston…Rethugs try to take away cities’ right to govern–and often succeed:

In red states across the country, legislatures and governors are moving to curb the power of blue municipalities and other institutions that don’t fall in line; erase the voting power of non-Republicans; expel the people those communities elected; and strip them of redress. It is a war on local control—a challenge to the agency of public-school systems, district attorneys, ballot initiatives, and even the kinds of corporate fiefdoms that Republicans might otherwise sanctify. These crackdowns are part of a broader story in national politics that has gained new traction in the Trump era to cast liberal governance, and Democratic dissent, as not just wrong but illegitimate.

It’s happening all over. A few weeks before Zephyr learned her fate, Republicans in Tennessee voted to expel two Black state representatives, from Memphis and Nashville, for staging a protest in support of gun reform. Republican lawmakers in Georgia, who have already taken steps to disempower county election boards, are laying the groundwork to fire the democratically-elected district attorney in Fulton County, just as Republicans in Pennsylvania previously pushed to oust the recently reelected chief prosecutor in Philadelphia.

Even Republicans inside the Beltway seem more inclined to meddle in local politics than debate federal policy these days. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee recently held a field hearing in Manhattan, purportedly to better understand the crime problem in one of America’s safest cities, but really to apply more pressure on the borough’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg, for his prosecution of Trump. Congress recently overturned a Washington, DC, law that revised sentencing guidelines for certain criminal offenses (some Democrats caved and backed the Republican-led effort). “All politics is local” doesn’t mean the same thing it used to.

How Many Succession Loose Ends Will Be Wrapped Up In Finale?  I’m a big fan, but not an obsessive.  So, I haven’t given most of these a second thought.   Until now.  Man, I don’t want this show to end.  Spinoff, please?

Joint Finance Committee Pads Carney’s Budget Requests.  Mostly good stuff:

Lawmakers added more than $124.5 million to the $5.48 billion spending plan Carney recommended in January. The revised budget plan, which must be approved by the House and Senate, totals more than $5.6 billion, roughly 10% higher than this year’s $5.1 billion operating budget.

The change in the supplement represents a decision to address a deficit in the state’s group health insurance plan with recurring operating funds over several years, rather than a one-time lump sum. As a result, the committee added $48.6 million to the proposed fiscal 2024 operating budget for group health insurance premiums.

The second major change to Carney’s recommended budget was an increase of $48.7 million to address the expected growth in Medicaid expenditures. Other additions included $8 million for home care workers and $5 million for skilled nursing care facilities, which will leverage $7 million in federal funds.

The committee also added $2.7 million to increase school bus driver pay from $21 per hour to $22.50 per hour.Budget writers also approved more than $4 million in initial funding, split roughly equally between operating and one-time funds, to reflect passage of bills legalizing recreational marijuana use and authorizing a state-licensed and regulated marijuana industry.

The budget committee signed off on Carney’s recommendation of pay raises ranging from 3% to 9% for state employees, depending on their pay grades. Employees making less than $50,000 a year will see their pay increase between 7% and 9%, while those making roughly $100,000 or more annually would see a 3% pay raise. Teachers, school counselors and school librarians will get salary increases of 9%.

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. puck says:

    “Hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost Medicaid coverage in recent weeks …”

    Red state Dems – this is a voter registration opportunity.

    • Arthur says:

      But the people cut off the rolls in arkansas won’t switch cause, you know, MAGA (and guns)

  2. Claybiz says:

    Carney cut around $10M from Grant in Aid for the nonprofits that are keeping Delaware from becoming a s*hole state. Where is the outrage!?

    Hopefully the JFC will restore it before the end of session.

  3. bamboozer says:

    The tiny minds that gave us the Tea Party, MAGA and assorted other Fascist games is hard at work to dream up new ways to implement minority rule, no doubt they picked up a few ideas from Viktor Orban, the de facto dictator of Hungary. Rather then expand their “tent” they’ve gone full on for Fascism and the end of democracy, this has been coming for decades, as they take power the goal is to make it harder to vote and find new ways to exclude voters they don’t like. As noted if they take full power in Washington they will refuse to leave and either civil war or a dictatorship will be the result.