The GOP Movement to Gut Medicaid Has Come to Tennessee
“Last week, the House Insurance Committee of the GOP-controlled Tennessee State Legislature voted along party lines to advance a bill promoting block-grant caps on Medicaid for the state. Block grants, as we’ve covered at Pacific Standard, are a means—long favored by Republicans—of cutting funding for Medicaid. The GOP has been trying and failing to impose Medicaid block grants since at least 1981. This latest state bill, which would force the governor to request permission for block grants from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, is opposed by a wide swathe of health-justice organizations in the state, but has now advanced to the House Finance, Ways, and Means Committee of the state’s general assembly.”