Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about the Medicare Program and in particular a news story that came to our attention this past weekend. This is the headline from a story dated January 11, late in the day, and it is by The Hill newspaper. You will not be able to see it from a distance, but the headline reads: ``Trump officials consider allowing Medicaid block grants for states.'' Here is what just the first two short paragraphs outline. The story begins as follows: The Trump administration is considering moving forward with a major conservative change to Medicaid by allowing States to get block grants for the program, sources say. Capping the amount of money that the federal government spends on the health insurance program for the poor through a block grant has long been a conservative goal. It was a controversial part of the ObamaCare repeal debate in 2017, with much of the public rallying against cuts to Medicaid. After the failure of that repeal effort, the Trump administration is now considering issuing guidance to states encouraging them to apply for caps on federal Medicaid spending in exchange for additional flexibility on how they run the program, according to people familiar with the discussions. I will not read the rest of the story, and I will not enter the whole story into the Record because folks can look it up, and there are other stories as well that cover this same news. So, in a sense, it is a big new development, but it is an old story.…”