Republicans are trying to punch some of the most harmful anti-episodes in living memory.
GOP the so -called A great beautiful accountpassed the house in May, comes with an ugly surprise: it would be force poor people to work To prove that they are worth the need for life. The Republican House to help pay for their basic goals – providing even more affluent Tax benefits and extension of Trump’s tough administration Mode against immigrants– Do not plan only to force all states to set work requirements in their Medicaid plans, but also allow them to impose the harshest is the most Rules if -no. Their bill orders almost all adult adults without restrictions to confirm that they work, voluntarily or went to school a month before enrollment. But states may demand from people to show that they work a year before they can be counted. Meanwhile, anyone who does not provide proper documentation will be banned not only from Medicaid, but also to receive subsidies to cover the available act on the market.
These changes would start as much as 14.4 million people According to Medicaid for the decade, the center for budgetary and political priorities reports.
Republicans have state that they are not going to cut Medicaid. “The president said again and again:” We are not going to touch social security, Medicare or Medicaid, “said the House Speaker Mike Johnson in February.” We have made the same commitments. ” will turn 60 This year, it became integrated into American life. It covers 83 million People – almost a quarter of all Americans – and Republicans do not want them to be taken away from their voters.
But the requirements for the work were included in the bill only because Republicans know that they reduce Medicaid enrollment, which means costs. A look at the small font shows this clearly: the bill assessment These Medicaid work requirements will save $ 273 billion that can be used to pay for the GoP tax reduction and its immigration repression.
Attempts at the States to implement the requirements to work prove that they are simply shrinking by another name. If Arcana implemented the job requirement by Medicaid during the first Trump administration, more than 18000 people Lost lighting. According to the words a 2020. The paper.
Things were going as bad GeorgiaWhich in 2023 created a new Medicaid proposal of A job requirement. The state estimated that 50,000 people will arrive in the first year, but only 5,000 signed up for a year and a half.
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The House Bill will also force more people to fulfill work requirements to get food stamps, applying them to all up to 65 years old, as well as people with children aged 7 years and older, as well as limiting the state’s ability to refuse high unemployment. A City Institute It turned out that these changes will eliminate or reduce food stamps for 5.4 million people. The requirements for the work that already exist in the food mark program were found, as in Medicaid to Refuse people The benefits they need without increasing the number of people who work.
The idea that poor people need to be forced to work for the government’s scant help is not new. President Ronald Reagan Successfully hacked the resentment of poor and black people with their stories about the queens who allegedly lived in most state checks. Bill Clinton ran for the president on promise “Finish well -being as we know it.” He has succeeded, finished a series of hoops For the recipients who jump, which many conservative states instantly caught fire. One of the hoops was a requirement that people regularly prove that they work or seek work.
Many people do not pass. Today only every fifth poor man gets monetary assistance and an increasing number of HAve none Monetary benefits and profits from work. Meanwhile, people who have been subjected to work on well -being no longer likely be employed five years after they were installed and those who are busy usually unstable work It does not last.
Back in the 1980s and 90s, the requirements for work were applied to “well -being”, which was allegedly meant. But Republicans worked hard to force virtually any state program under the well -being. In A New York Times n-an EDFour high-ranking Trump officials recently wrote that Medicaid, food stamps and even assistance in housing is “Welfare” and called for “universal work requirements” in all such programs.
It was always possible to imagine that the Americans were able to live with luxury cash and therefore had to be forced to pay employment. It is impossible to claim the same about programs that are simply designed to guarantee that no one goes without the basics of life: food, health and housing. These programs are not “Dole”. They help to ensure that in one of the richest countries the world people do not leave to starve, suffer from homelessness and die.
