Congress’ urge to legislate quickly on the coronavirus outbreak has resulted in all manner of unintended policy consequences. Numerous reports indicate that the Internal Revenue Service has sent coronavirus relief payments to deceased individuals. Large restaurant chains have received loans from the Paycheck Protection Program intended for businesses that have less access to capital, even as small businesses struggling to survive report being shut out of the PPP.
Even more worrisome than these reports: A series of Medicaid-related provisions that provide a potential steppingstone toward a single-payer health-care system. These provisions not only encourage waste, fraud, and abuse, but will also further entrench government-run health care—the left’s ultimate objective.
Maintenance of Effort Provisions
Section 6008 of pandemic relief legislation the president signed on March 18 provides states a 6.2 percent increase in the federal Medicaid match. But the funds, designed in part to offset states’ revenue loss during the economic downturn, come with a huge catch.
To receive the additional federal funding, states may not adopt more restrictive Medicaid eligibility standards, impose new premiums, or otherwise restrict benefits. These “maintenance of effort” requirements echo provisions included in the 2009 “stimulus” legislation, which also raised states’ Medicaid match. But this year’s bill went even further, prohibiting states from terminating benefits for any enrollee during the coronavirus public health emergency “unless the individual requests a voluntary termination of eligibility or the individual ceases to be a resident of the State.”
In layman’s terms, this provision prohibits state Medicaid programs from terminating the enrollment of individuals with income that exceeds state eligibility limits. For instance, following a scathing report by the state’s legislative auditor, Louisiana last year disenrolled 1,672 individuals with incomes of more than $100,000 from the state’s Medicaid program—including some with income higher than Gov. John Bel Edwards’ salary.
But the provisions Congress enacted in March now prohibit Louisiana, or any other state, from disenrolling these ineligible individuals during the coronavirus outbreak. To put it another way, an individual who enrolled in Medicaid while unemployed could take a new job making $1 million per year, and the state would have absolutely no recourse to kick that individual off of the government rolls, so long as he wants to remain enrolled in “free,” taxpayer-funded health coverage.
Pave the Way for Single Payer?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how the next president could use these provisions to empower a vast expansion of government-run care. A Biden administration could leave the public health emergency declaration in place for its entire presidency—and would have strong policy incentives to do so. By preventing states from removing ineligible beneficiaries for its entire presidency, a Biden administration could massively expand Medicaid, turning the program into something approaching liberals’ dream of a single-payer system.
The Louisiana experience also shows the direct correlation between eligibility checks, enrollment, and spending on Medicaid. State officials removed at least 30,000 individuals from the program last spring, reducing enrollment in expansion by more than 10 percent, and lowering program spending by approximately $400 million. A Biden administration that prohibits states from removing ineligible beneficiaries for four or eight years would see taxpayers spending billions of dollars funding millions of ineligible enrollees—an enrollment explosion that could prove difficult to unwind.
Don’t Bail Out the States
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has already begun work on the next coronavirus package, with she and her fellow Democrats adamantly insisting that a bailout of states stands next on Congress’ “to-do” list.
But it seems highly disingenuous for Pelosi and Democrats to call for bailing out state budgets, even as they prohibit those same states from removing ineligible individuals from the Medicaid program. Even Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has called the new requirements on state Medicaid programs absurd: “Why would the federal government say, ‘I’m going to trample the state’s right to redesign its Medicaid program, that it runs—that saves money?’”
Conservatives in Congress should demand that lawmakers fix the Medicaid provisions, either by allowing states to remove ineligible beneficiaries, setting a specific end-date for the increased federal matching funds, or (more preferably) both. Otherwise, by prohibiting states from purging their rolls of Medicaid enrollees who don’t belong in the program, the United States could find itself with a single-payer system by the back door.