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Last time we checked in on the Republican Senate, Nevada's Dean Heller was the big weasel on Medicaid, trying to pretend he wasn't supporting the massive cuts to the program that he most definitely is supporting. That level of weasel-ness has now been matched by Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, who is trying to redefine phasing out Medicaid expansion as a "transition period." She told The Hill's Peter Sullivan not to call it a phase-out of the money.
Capito: I phrase it as a seven year transitional period either to Medicaid or to coverage that's as good as the Medicaid coverage that folks are on. I've said repeatedly, I don't want to drop anybody off. I'm not phasing anybody out of anything.
Sullivan: But once the higher federal funding is gone, how would people maintain coverage?
Capito: Well, we have to make sure that if that goes forward that they have availability of coverage that's affordable and as broad as what they need, that's the transition.
Sullivan: And you think that would be just through the tax credit that's in the bill, or….?
Capito: We're looking at more opioid money, for opioid abuse, we're looking at some stabilization pools for the states, so I think that's a question that we're still trying to figure out the answer to.
Sullivan: Could you agree to less than seven years?
Capito: I mean, we're negotiating now.
Here's news for Capito: She's definitely taking coverage away from probably 77,300 people.
If it happens tomorrow or happens over three years or over seven years, it's still happening. And that’s not even talking about the massive cuts they are planning by turning the program into a block grant.
What she prefers to call it is irrelevant. It's still taking health care away from tens of thousands of people she was elected to serve.