Hoosiers could be kicked off Medicaid under Trump's 'big beautiful bill.' What to know
Language added to the federal legislation on June 16 caps the Medicaid provider tax — which is used to cover 90% of the state's portion of the costs for the Healthy Indiana Plan — at 3.5%. Indiana utilizes a 6% provider tax, meaning the change would decrease funding from the fee by nearly half. Opponents of the provider tax view it as a loophole used by states to qualify for matching dollars from the federal government, which pays for 90% of the costs of the program, without having to dedicate much of their own funds.
If passed as is, Indiana would not be able to afford the current costs of the Healthy Indiana Plan, the state's insurance program for low-income people, Indiana Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Mitch Roob said at a state budget committee meeting June 18.
But neither Roob nor Gov. Mike Braun are asking Congress to keep the full 6%. Instead, Roob said at the meeting that he wants Congress to add language that would give states the flexibility to adapt.
Those changes would allow the state to enroll fewer Hoosiers in HIP, according to Roob.
'Please give us the needed flexibility to roll back our eligibility if they change the fuel mix for our program,' he said at the meeting.
Even without the added impact of the federal legislation, the state is making it more challenging to qualify for Medicaid. The latest version of HIP already includes more restrictions, such as work requirements for able-bodied recipients that passed the legislature this year. The new law includes a list of exceptions, though not all would be covered under the work requirement language proposed in the federal bill.
In a statement June 18, Braun said the efforts to reduce federal spending were overdue.
"However, flexibility in managing Indiana's HIP program will be essential for the state moving forward, especially if we are required to take on more of the financial obligation,' he said in the statement. 'This will require a hands-on approach to updating and maintaining Indiana's Medicaid system that only Hoosiers can provide.'
Braun said he would work to 'stretch the dollar' for people with chronic diseases and those who 'really can't afford health care' when speaking to reporters at the Indiana Statehouse on June 19.
'That's what I'd like to have it there for, not what it's expanded into with very lax supervision, pushed by the feds and now with a bunch of begrudging state partners because it's been busting the budget,' he said.
The provision has already faced some GOP opposition in the U.S. House of Representatives, which must approve this version of the bill before it can move on. With a slim Republican majority, it's possible the part of the bill that imposes the 3.5% tax cap could be removed.
The version that already passed the House only capped future increases in provider fees.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Transcript: Dr. Mehmet Oz on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 3, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: Change is coming for the country's Medicaid system as part of the enactment of the Big, Beautiful Bill. To help us understand what's ahead, we turn now to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Good morning. Welcome to Face The Nation. DR. MEHMET OZ: Thank you. MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got a lot of work ahead. I want to start on drug costs. The president put this 25% tariff on India, big drug producer. The President's trade deal with the EU puts a 15 percent tariff on imported medicines from Europe. How do you stop the drug makers from passing along those costs to people on Medicare and Medicaid? DR. MEHMET OZ: Well, the president's letter on Thursday for most favored nation pricing is a good example of that, and he's been working on this tirelessly since the first administration. And just to put this in context for many of the viewers, about two thirds of bankruptcies in America are caused by health care expenses. About a third of people when they go to the pharmacy, they leave empty handed. They can't afford the medication. So the President has said, Enough global freeloading. We've been covering much of the development costs for new drugs to cure cancer, deal with lots of other illnesses that are life threatening. It is in time for the American public to understand that we should not be paying three times more for the exact same medication in the same box, made in the same factories. The president's saying, equalize it out. Let's use a model that's worked, for example, for external threats, that's what NATO did. Everyone has to pay a little more. We'll pay extra too, but we won't pay a lot more than everybody else, so they actually have to raise their contributions, in this case, to an internal threat, which is illness. We'll pay a little less than America that way more Americans can afford these medications, and it's a fair system for the entire globe. MARGARET BRENNAN: So this was declared in these letters that were sent out to 17 pharmaceutical companies this past week, and it calls for extending that to Medicaid drug prices. Is that intended to offset what will be, you know, cuts to Medicaid? And do you know, you know, if the companies are actually going to follow through on this, like, how do you actually strong arm them into doing it? DR. OZ: Well just get the numbers correct. We're putting 200 billion more dollars into Medicaid. So we're actually investing— MARGARET BRENNAN: —by the time when costs are going up, so. DR. OZ: Costs are going up, but there's been a 50 percent increase in the cost of Medicaid over the last five years. So I'm trying to save this beautiful program, this noble effort, to help folks giving them a hand up. And as you probably gather, if Medicaid isn't able to take care of the people for whom it was designed, the young children, the dawn of their life, those are the twilight of their life, the seniors and those who are disabled living in the shadows, as Hubert Humphrey said, then we're not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government. And this President has said over and over that he believes that it is the wise thing and the noble thing to help those who are vulnerable and every great society does that, we're going to as well. So we're going to invest in Medicaid as is required, but we want an appropriate return on that investment. One thing that Medicaid patients should not face are drug prices they can't afford. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, how do you enforce this? Pharmaceutical companies— DR. OZ: Well, the pharmaceutical companies, if you sit them down quietly, Margaret, and we've done that, and say you went into this business at some point, because you cared about people. I know there's many out there shaking their heads, but that is actually the truth. People go into health care, whether they're pharmaceutical companies or insurance companies or the PBMs or anybody in the space. Even at the CMS, the most impressive thing to me in my new task, and the President has appointed me to, is the remarkable quality of people within the organization, just unbelievably talented. They went into this job because they care about health care and about people. Somewhere along the lines, people forget. They put numbers ahead of patients. And when that happens, then you start running into problems. We went to the pharmaceutical companies and we said, you appreciate this is not a fair system. We should not be paying more in America, three times more, for your products than you charge in Europe. They get the joke. They understand the reality of this problem. They are engaging with us. We're in the middle of those negotiations. The President has a unique power to convene. We've done it with dealing with prior authorization, this heinous process where patients feel like they're trying to get care from a doctor. Everything's being done except all of a sudden the arm of insurance comes in and stops the whole process for unknown reasons for weeks, sometimes months. The insurance companies, representing 80 percent of the American public, got together and they said, because we pushed them, we're going to deal with this. We can do the same, I believe, with the pharmaceutical industry, with most favored nation pricing. MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about the changes that are coming because of this new law to Medicaid, which is jointly administered between the feds and the states. There are major reduction- reductions to federal health care spending here, one of the changes are these work requirements. It's about 20 hours a week, volunteer or work to qualify for health care. What is the guidance you are giving to states on how to implement this? Because in this economy, things are more complicated. Uber driver, independent contractor, how do they show they work their 20 hours a week? DR. OZ: Last weekend, I was at the National Governors Association with Secretary Kennedy, who has been a big advocate of work as well. Every Democratic president and Republican president has said that the foundation of a healthy welfare system of a social system of support is work. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but I'm asking how you actually implement that and register it so that people who are working do qualify, and they don't get caught up in paperwork because they didn't file something on time. DR. OZ: As long as we're okay that people should work and would want to work, and it's not just work, it's community engagement. They can go get educated, right? They can take care of family members. They can contribute in other ways, but work is a great way of doing and get you out of poverty if you can find jobs and elevate yourself. There have been efforts to do this in the past, but they haven't been able to achieve what we can achieve, because we have technologies now. And we've invested already, as soon as the bill was signed, began pilots to try to demonstrate that we can actually do this correctly. We have pilots now in Louisiana and in Arizona, in both cases, within seven minutes, you can click on where you're working. You mentioned Uber, you're an Uber driver. You click that button on your phone. It just takes you to your payroll provider. Let's say it's ADP. We then ask your permission, can we connect with this payroll provider to demonstrate what you've actually been able to work and earn over the past month? This also, by the way, confirms your eligibility. But there's a bigger benefit here. Once you do that, you're in, you're done. However, what if we take one step further, Margaret? What if we go beyond just proving that you tried the work to actually say, You know what, you didn't work enough, but we can actually help you by connecting you through an employment office? MARGARET BRENNAN: So you're still figuring out the technology, but isn't there an end-of-December deadline for a lot of these things to be figured out? And how do you make sure that people don't get kicked off? Because in the state of Georgia, which already had work requirements, they have really struggled to make this work. DR. OZ: Well, a couple of things. It's not the end of December, it's end of December a year from now, and Georgia is apples and oranges. Georgia had a program only for people under the poverty level, and for those people, if they wanted, they could elect to come into a system to help them get jobs. There have been 50,000 reduction in head count of uninsured people in the overall program in the last five years. Overall, Georgia, 2 million less uninsured people. So Georgia is using a lot of tactics, and they're going in the right direction. I would argue that if you have confidence in the American people and their desire to take to offer to try to get a job, if we challenge you to that. And remember, if you're an able-bodied person on Medicaid, you're spending 6.1 hours watching television or leisure time, so you don't want that— MARGARET BRENNAN: —Well, KFF Health Policy found 92 percent of adult Medicaid recipients already are working. Or they have the carve out because they have to have caregivers, or they have to do other things. DR. OZ: They're fine. All they have to do is there'll be a simple app. If you've already carved out, that's super simple. If you're supposed to be if you're able-bodied and supposed to be working, we want to help connect you to the job market and get you into work. We have twice as many jobs available in America as people who seem to want them. The foundation of work is not just about fulfilling eligibility. The goal of health care insurance is to catalyze action in the right direction, to get you healthier, to give you agency over your future, so you recognize you matter, and you should have a job, therefore to go out and change the world. MARGARET BRENNAN: So there's a drug addiction problem in this country. How are those changes going to impact people who are on Medicaid in states like Kentucky, in states like West Virginia? DR. OZ: In many instances, there are carve outs for folks who have substance use disorder problems. There are programs-- MARGARET BRENNAN: —How do they prove that? ADMINISTRATOR OZ: Well, they can— MARGARET BRENNAN: Is this in the app? DR. OZ: Yes, it will be in the app. The app, again, this is being developed by the United States Digital Service, led by Amy Gleason, who is a wonderful technologist. She and I were with the President and Secretary Kennedy and the head of the czar for AI in this country on Wednesday, talking about overall how we're going to change the use of health technology in America. We've got to get into 2025 with health technology, as is true in every other sector. If you're watching the show right now, you could also be streaming media. You could take an Uber somewhere, the rideshare. You could do an Airbnb. Technology should make the system more efficient. We should have confidence that it will also allow us to do what we all agree is possible. If the whole challenge to a work requirement is that you don't have confidence in our ability to accomplish it, that's a separate question, because I do have confidence in the American people, and we have confidence we can pull this off. Look at the passport system, Margaret. Right now, you can go and get a passport in two weeks without having to go to the post office, send pictures, and all that's gone. It's fixable. Let's use technology. MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm still confused on how someone who is in the throes of substance abuse is going to use an app to say, I'm in the throes of substance abuse every week, to file on online— DR. OZ: —When they go in to get their help for their substance abuse treatment, assuming they're going for help on that, they can also get enrolled in, in those requirements, can be fulfilled. We want to talk to them in as many ways as possible. It's not going to happen just because we put an app out there, you, you have social workers and other folk elements who care a lot about this population, who are coming together, but they have to have some mechanism to report back. That just has not been done well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and this is incredibly detailed, and that's why we wanted to have you on. I have so many more questions for you on rural hospitals and some of the other criticisms. I have to leave it there for now. But thank you, Dr. Oz-- DR. OZ: Can I give you 30 seconds on rural hospitals, because this is important. You have 7 percent of Medicaid money going to rural hospitals. We're putting 50 billion dollars the president wants us to, Congress wants to— MARGARET BRENNAN: There are a lot questions on how you're going to duel that out, and whether you have already made promises. Do you have any specifics for us? DR. OZ: Yes. Wait, wait, it's going to be, they'll get the applications in early September. The money is designed to help you with workforce development, right sizing the system and using technology to provide things like telehealth that can change the world. Imagine if we can change the way we think about the delivery of health and make it more about getting people healthy so they can thrive and flourish and be fully present in their own lives and as Americans. MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr Oz, we'll leave it there. We'll be back in a moment. Black swimmers teach others amid history of aquatic segregation How safe is our Social Security safety net? In Gaza, hunger forces impossible choices as Hamas releases propaganda video of hostage Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘They roll right over': Many Democratic voters call their party weak and ineffective, poll finds
WASHINGTON — Many Democrats see their political party as 'weak' or 'ineffective,' while Republicans are more complimentary of their party, although a small but significant share describe the GOP as 'greedy' or say it is generally 'bad,' according to a new poll. The poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in July reveals warning signs for both major U.S. parties as the political focus shifts to elections in New Jersey and Virginia this fall and the midterm contests next year. Respondents were asked to share the first word or phrase that came to mind when they thought of the Republican and Democratic parties. Answers were then sorted into broad categories, including negative and positive attributes. Overall, U.S. adults held a dim view of both parties, with about 4 in 10 using negative attributes, including words such as 'dishonest' or 'stupid.' But nearly nine months after Republican Donald Trump won a second presidential term, Democrats appear to be harboring more resentment about the state of their party than do Republicans. Democrats were likelier to describe their own party negatively than Republicans. Republicans were about twice as likely to describe their own party positively. 'They're spineless,' Cathia Krehbiel, a 48-year-old Democrat from Indianola, Iowa, said of her party. She believes the party's response to the Trump administration has been 'scattershot.' 'I just feel like there's so much recently that's just going abhorrently wrong,' Krehbiel said. 'And they speak up a little bit and they roll right over.' Overall, roughly one-third of Democrats described their party negatively in the open-ended question. About 15% described the Democratic Party using such words as 'weak' or 'apathetic,' while an additional 10% believe it is broadly 'ineffective' or 'disorganized.' Only about 2 in 10 Democrats described their party positively, with roughly 1 in 10 saying it is 'empathetic' or 'inclusive.' An additional 1 in 10 used more general positive descriptors. It is unclear what effect the Democrats' unease may have on upcoming elections or the political debate in Washington, but no political organization wants to be plagued by internal divisions. Still, the Democrats' frustration appears to reflect their concern that party leaders are not doing enough to stop Trump's GOP, which controls Washington. There is little sign that such voters would abandon their party in favor of Trump's allies in upcoming elections, and the vast majority of Democrats described the GOP negatively. But disaffected Democrats might decide not to vote at all. That could undermine their party's push to reclaim at least one chamber of Congress in 2026. Jim Williams, a 78-year-old retiree from Harper Woods, Mich., is a self-described political independent who said he typically supports Democrats, but he is 'disappointed' with the party and its murky message. He views the Republican Party as much worse, saying it 'has lost it' under Trump's leadership. 'All he does is bully and call names. They've got no morals, no ethics. And the more they back him, the less I like them,' he said of Trump. Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to describe their party positively, with many also using straightforward ideological descriptors like 'conservative.' About 4 in 10 Republicans used positive attributes to characterize the GOP, making general mentions of words such as 'patriotic' or 'hardworking,' or offering associations with the word 'freedom.' Samuel Washington, 65, of Chicago, said he typically votes Republican. He praised Trump's leadership, even while acknowledging that the president's policies on trade and spending might be creating short-term economic hardship. 'There's a lot of pain, but the pain is the result of 12 years of misuse and misguided leadership from the Democratic Party,' he said. 'I'm feeling really good about Republicans and the direction that they're going.' But views were not uniformly good. About 2 in 10 Republicans said something negative about the party, including phrases such as 'greedy,' 'for the rich' or 'corrupt.' Republican Dick Grayson, an 83-year-old veteran from Trade, Tenn., said he is 'disappointed' by his party's fealty to Trump. Among other things, he pointed to the price tag of Trump's tax-and-spend package, which will add nearly $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. 'I've always been a Republican, but I'm disillusioned about both parties,' Grayson said. Among all Americans, the poll finds that the Republican Party is viewed slightly more negatively than the Democratic Party. The different is not large: 43% used negative words to describe the Republicans, compared with 39% for the Democrats. Much of the negativity is driven by the opposing party — and nonaligned voters' distaste for both. So-called political independents are much likelier to describe both parties with negative attributes rather than positive descriptors, though a significant share did not offer an opinion. Curtis Musser, a 60-year-old unaffiliated voter from Beverly Hills, Fla., said both parties have shifted too far toward the extreme for his liking. He said he is ready for a serious third party to emerge before the next presidential election, pointing to Elon Musk's new America Party, which has been slow to launch. 'Maybe he would get us headed in the right direction,' the retired schoolteacher said. The AP-NORC poll of 1,437 adults was conducted July 10-14, using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. Peoples, Sanders and Yoo write for the Associated Press. Peoples reported from New York, Sanders and Yoo from Washington.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Push to ban lawmaker stock trading gets new life
The years-long effort to ban members of Congress from trading stocks is back in the spotlight following a House Ethics Committee report that took issue with transactions made by a member's spouse, and after a Senate panel advanced legislation to prohibit lawmakers from making transactions. And some lawmakers are vowing to keep the topic front and center into the fall as they look to make headways on a matter that has mystified Congress. Leading that effort is Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who plans to file a discharge petition on legislation to prohibit lawmakers and their immediate families from owning, trading or controlling stocks, commodities or futures, directing lawmakers to divest their holdings within 180 days of the bill's enactment. If the procedural gambit is successful, the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn), would hit the floor in the fall. But if the past is prologue, getting the measure over the finish line will be a tall task. Supporters, however, are optimistic they will find success. 'I think America is aware of what's going on,' Burchett told The Hill. 'They know it's not natural for somebody to, day in and day out, pick stock and have a 100, 200, 300 percent return, and they're tired of seeing Congress members making $170,000 a year retiring worth millions.' While the idea of banning members from trading stocks is widely popular among the public, some lawmakers for years have balked at the push, raising concerns about the level of pay for members — a $174,000 salary, which has been frozen since 2009, constituting a 30 percent pay cut when adjusting for inflation. And even among those who support banning members from trading stocks, there is disagreement about the details. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last weekadvanced a bill that would bar not only members, their spouses, and their dependent children from buying and trading stocks, but also the president and vice president — with a carve-out for President Trump, since the requirement would not apply until the start of the elected officials' next terms. The hearing over the bill became contentious, with some Republicans on the panel arguing against a ban altogether, Democrats arguing in support and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asking why Trump should be exempt. Trump, who earlier in the day had said he liked the stock trading ban 'conceptually,' attacked Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) for his support of the bill. Hawley later said Trump was under the mistaken impression it would apply to him. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who as leader of the House opposed a stock trading ban and after whom Republicans cheekily named a previous effort to ban trading — threw her support behind the bill as well. Pelosi had opened the door to supporting a stock trading ban in 2022, but her outright endorsement was nonetheless notable. But Burchett's bill that Luna hopes to force a vote on, as well as several other stock trade bills — such as the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (TRUST) in Congress Act, from Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) — do not include the barring trades by the president. Despite those hangups, proponents of the ban are optimistic they can get it done this time around. 'It's an increasingly public fight that people care about,' Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a large supporter of a prohibition on lawmaker stock trading, told The Hill. 'And Congress is running out of runway with the people.' 'We will force votes,' he added. The difficulty in crafting a stock trading ban is personified in Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), who has caught heat for continuing to trade stocks despite saying he wants to ban member stock trading. Bresnahan, a businessman whose estimated net worth is in the multi-millions, has continued to report many stock trades despite writing a letter to the editor during his campaign calling to ban stock trading. Bresnahan has introduced a stock trading ban bill and says that he has no involvement with the trades that his financial advisers have made on his behalf. While he has said he wants to keep his current financial advisers and create a blind trust that would put a more stringent firewall between him and those trades, he has found problems in crafting that plan with the House Ethics Committee. Local public news organization WVIA noted that Bresnahan could simply ask his advisers to not make any more trades, but Bresnahan dismissed that idea. 'And then do what with it?' Bresnahan said to WVIA News. 'Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?' Despite some critics, supporters of a stock trading ban are plowing full-steam ahead, hoping to make headway on the headwinds created by the House Ethics Committee. 'Members of Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks because their access to privileged, nonpublic information creates unavoidable conflicts of interest that erode public confidence in government,' Luna said in a statement. 'As lawmakers, we receive classified briefings, shape economic policies, and interact with industry leaders, giving us insights that can influence stock prices.' 'Even if no laws are broken, the appearance of profiting from this access fuels distrust among Americans,' she added. 'The American people do not trust the US government, and this is a step forward to building that trust.' The impetus for the current push was a report from the House Ethics Committee that said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) violated the lower chamber's code of conduct when his wife traded stocks for the company Cleveland-Cliffs — which has a facility in Kelly's district — after the congressman learned non-public information about the firm. On April 28, 2020, Kelly learned that the Commerce Department would make an announcement that would benefit Cleveland-Cliffs. The day after, the congressman's wife, Victoria Kelly, bought 5,000 shares of the company for $23,075. The department's news was ultimately made public on May 4. She sold all her shares of the company in January 2021 shortly after Cleveland-Cliffs acquired a steel manufacturing corporation, turning a $64,476.06 profit. 'Representative Kelly's conduct with respect to Cleveland-Cliffs and his wife's stock purchase raised significant concerns for the Committee, even if it did not rise to the level of insider trading or clearly violate conflict of interest rules,' the committee wrote in its report, later adding that Kelly 'has not demonstrated sufficient appreciation for the harm to the institution caused by the appearance of impropriety.' It is, to be sure, already illegal for members of Congress to make transactions based on information they receive through their job, and the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which was enacted in 2012, requires that lawmakers report their stock trades within 30 days. But some ethics advocates believe the law should be stronger. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), while he said he is supportive of the efforts to ban stock trades, has noted the difficult position the restrictions could put on members and their families, given the salary for members of Congress has been frozen since 2009. That amounts to around a 30 percent pay cut when adjusting for inflation. Most members make a salary of $174,000. 'If you stay on this trajectory, you're going to have less qualified people who are willing to make the extreme sacrifice to run for Congress,' Johnson said in May. 'I mean, just people just make a reasonable decision as a family on whether or not they can come to Washington and have a residence here, residence at home, and do all the things that are required.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
