Damn, Republicans want all those people who work hard for a living but still can't afford health insurance to suffer. We did already know that in the resistance by so many red state legislatures and governors to Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, but now it's the Republican Congress's turn, and they are just vicious in their punishment of the Medicaid group.
Right now, individuals who sign up for Medicaid can get their medical care covered by the program retroactively. That coverage goes back as much as three months before they applied for the program, as long as recipients would have been eligible for the program that entire time.
Experts say that's an important protection for people in Medicaid, who are generally living in or near poverty, because they often don't know that they're eligible for the program until they get sick and go to the hospital or a doctor. It also protects people in case they experience any delays in the application and enrollment process. […]
The Republican bill includes a provision—three paragraphs in the 66-page bill—that would significantly shorten that period of retroactive coverage, permitting claims only from the same calendar month that the person applied. […]
But policy experts, including conservatives, also acknowledged that the new policy would come with a trade-off — people who get sick or in an accident on the 30th but don't sign up for Medicaid until the 1st could be on the hook for big medical bills.
"The concern about patients being stuck with a bill they can't pay is sort of legitimate," Antos said.
And they'd be on their own. Heaven help them if they get put in the hospital on the 30th, but aren't signed up until the 1st. And praying is about the only recourse they'll have, if Republicans have their way. This, by the way, is not going to make the various hospital groups who have already panned the bill any happier.
Nor is the latest push from the maniacs to cut off Medicaid expansion immediately. That idea is likely going to make it into the bill in an amendment, because the huge block of 170 members of the Republican Study Committee are all but demanding it.