Despite a plea from more than a dozen Republican Minnesota state lawmakers, all four Minnesotans in U.S. Congress voted in favor of a budget proposal that could include drastic cuts to Medicaid, food aid and other assistance programs.

Late Tuesday, all but one House Republican voted in favor of a framework that includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in spending cuts. Where those cuts would happen aren’t specified, but it does target the committee that handles health care spending — including Medicaid.

In a letter from 14 state Republicans to their Washington colleagues, the GOP wrote that Medicaid is “contrary to how we Republicans respect the aged and the vulnerable.” One of those vulnerable populations is Minnesota kids.

About one in five Minnesotans are on Medicaid. That shakes out to about one in six adults and three in 10 children, according to KFF Health News analysis.

Dr. Marc Gorelick, CEO of Children’s Minnesota, told MPR News on Wednesday about half of his hospital system’s patients are covered by Minnesota Medical Assistance — the state’s Medicaid program for people with low income.

“It's a broad health insurance program. It covers preventive services, things like ‘well child visits,’ vaccines. It covers prenatal care for pregnant moms, and of course, it covers the whole range of services that children with a variety of acute or chronic health conditions may need to get them back to health and to maintain their health,” Gorelick said.

Medicaid, however, only covers about 70 percent of health care costs in the state. Gorelick said Minnesota hospitals collectively lose over one billion dollars annually due to underfunding from the state.

“If there are further cuts to the program, either fewer people would be eligible, in which case some people would not have coverage or payments to providers would have to go down even further, which would put additional pressure on those of us who care for all people — including those on Medicaid — to maintain access to those services when we're getting paid less than the cost of providing them,” Gorelick explained.

Those health care costs, including labor and supplies, are going up faster than general inflation, meaning it’d be difficult to reduce costs further, he said.

In 2023, more than 1.4 million Minnesotans were enrolled in Medicaid, according to the state Department of Human Services. That’s grown steadily from less than 1.1 million in 2019.

Gorelick believes the best path forward is to at least preserve the current federal funding for Medicaid in Minnesota.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player button.

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.