In a recent move Republican leaders in Congress have directed the committee that oversees Medicaid to cut $880 billion from the next budget.
That is a huge chunk of change to find in the federal program that mostly supports the nations poor children and older people in nursing homes whose money has ran out.
Now President Trump, Elon Musk and his DOGE team have been busy trimming the fat in Washington’s spending. The President has repeatedly said the Federal government has no plans to cut the program.
However, if the Feds cut Medicaid spending that will put more burden on the states since the states were supposed to split the bill 50-50 with the Feds. So if the Federal government cuts back to only 30 percent. The other twenty percent will need to be covered by the states.
Or Medicaid might start reimbusing providers less. If this happens it might cause some doctors to no longer accept it as insurance. This will even further strain on already suffering rural doctors offices and hospitals who heavily rely on Medicaid reimbursments to stay in business.
This is a troublesome thought for Mississippians. Right now, our state Legislature has been working on a new tax plan to eliminate the income tax for Mississippians. This bill hasn’t been able to work in previous years due to concerns on the state coming up shorthanded on a budget.
It seems like Tate County’s own Trey Lamar (author of the bill to cut income taxes) might finally accomplish his goals of getting the bill through state legislature.
But...It might be more wise to wait.
Who will end up footing the bill when the state has cut a major source of its funding right before the federal government cuts spending to states?
Someone will be required to pay, but I would hate to see all the positive aspects of eliminating the income tax over shadowed by news of budget shortages and state programs being cut because we acted too hastily.
It would show some restraint to wait and see how things play out in Washington. At the rate at which change is happening in the Capitol, I doubt we’d have to wait long to see how the cards will fall. Of course, who knows. Maybe the man who is on track to be the world’s first trillionaire can find some funds and pay for the program completely.
