LATE TO THE PARTY: GOP House proposes slashing #Medicare, #Medicaid & #ACA by $2 TRILLION

My apologies. Between a death in the family and some other personal issues, I'm way behind the eight ball this week. As a result, I'm just now getting around to writing about not one, not two, not three, but FOUR major GOP attacks on the ACA and healthcare in general which either happened or had major developments this week.

Instead of getting even further behind by trying to do a full, detailed take on each of them, I'm going to crib like crazy from other healthcare reporters/articles to cover the gist of each.

2: House GOP 2019 budget calls for deep Medicare, Medicaid spending cuts

Big shocker, I know...yeah, that's the actual headline of the Hill article, in which the GOP also proposes simply stripping out all funding for the ACA while they're at it:

House Republicans offered a budget proposal on Tuesday that would cut mandatory spending by $5.4 billion* over a decade, including $537 billion in cuts to Medicare and $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other health programs.

*(pretty sure this is a typo that's supposed to be $5.4 trillion...)

On Medicare, the budget would move towards a system of private health insurance plans competing with one other, rather than the current open-ended, government-provided Medicare system.

Hmmmm...heavily-subsidized private health insurance plans competing with each other? Gee, that sounds an awful lot like...Obamacare.

On Medicaid, the budget would impose new caps that could lead to cuts in payments over time.

The budget also sets up a fast-track process known as reconciliation that could allow ObamaCare repeal to pass without Democratic votes in the Senate.

The budget also proposes $2.6 trillion in reductions to other mandatory spending programs, including welfare and other anti-poverty programs.

They slashed taxes by $1.5 trillion last December, so of course the other shoe is dropping now. And heck, as long as you're decimating the social safety net, why stop there?

The new budget calls for a precipitous drop in non-defense spending over the next decade, even as defense spending rises.

Oh, of course.

Oh, and yeah...it assumes the ACA is eliminated:

In the House of Representatives, the chair of the Committee on the Budget may revise the allocations, aggregates, and other appropriate budgetary levels in this concurrent resolution for the budgetary effects of any bill or joint resolution, or amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that repeals or replaces any provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or title I or subtitle B of title II of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 by the amount of budget authority and outlays flowing therefrom provided by such measure for such purpose.

It's mostly a symbolic bill at the moment, but it's a dire warning sign of what absolutely will happen if the Republican Party retains control of both the House and Senate next year.