Schrier challenges Republican committee chair as Medicaid markup session goes 26 hours
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Twenty-one hours into a crucial committee hearing on the Republican plan to subtract an estimated $880 billion from Medicaid programs, U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier had a question.
"How," the 8th District Democrat asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, acting chair of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, "does kicking or shifting 13.7 million Americans off of their health insurance 'make America healthy again?'"
It was close to 4 a.m. Wednesday, in a grueling markup of the Republican super-bill that would go on another five hours. Griffith, a Virginia Republican, answered in part, "... We are looking at reforming the program and we're saying, are people eligible under the standards of the program? And we do think that getting people to work that have the ability to work is good for them, is healthier for them. I would put that in the category."
Griffith was touching on the GOP plan to require Medicaid recipients to work in order to be eligible for the program — part of an overall push to achieve $880 billion in cuts.
Schrier, a Sammamish pediatrician whose district includes the Wenatchee Valley, was having none of it. "That doesn't hold water with me," she said, interrupting the chair. "As a physician, I will just say, you might want to consider the fact that people who are healthy are best able to work, and you're only looking at the other way. And I would also say that if you don't cover people who need health care, it does impact all of our health .If kids don't get vaccinated, as we've seen with these measles outbreaks, every one of us is put at risk.
"How," the 8th District Democrat asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, acting chair of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, "does kicking or shifting 13.7 million Americans off of their health insurance 'make America healthy again?'"
"And so I would just ask you, as you think about the bigger picture of what this administration is focused on and what you're focused on — if that is your North Star, I want you to think about what it will mean for making America healthy again to take health care away from 13.7 million Americans."
About 2 million people in Washington are beneficiaries of Medicare, known in the state as Apple Health. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if Republican proposals are enacted, the 13.7 million drop in recipients would be achieved by 2034.
The Energy and Commerce subcommittee is the first congressional body to review the GOP bill. After the marathon session, Schrier spoke by Zoom with NCWLIFE. She managed the whole 26-hour ordeal, she said, on only four coffees.
"But I did have two at home before I even went in," she said, "so I guess that makes it six."
NCWLIFE: Do you think you could briefly recap, Congresswoman, the big points from the markup session? What came out of that session overnight?
U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier: So here are the big toplines so that people know what this 26-and-a-half-hour markup was. This is my committee's part of President Trump's, you know, the 'big beautiful bill.' And this is the bill that renews his 2017 tax plan that is set to expire. And if people recall, this was a really big deal, kind of a scandalous thing then, because the vast majority, like 85% of the benefit, I believe, went to the wealthiest, to the billionaires and to the giant corporations. And so it was really considered generally not good and not fair for my constituents. but it also exploded the deficit by about $4 trillion. And so now it's time to redo it, and they're trying to figure out how to pay for it. So one of the ways is lifting the debt ceiling, which will explode the deficit. But another way is getting into Medicaid and taking, in this case, it would be $715 billion — so three quarters of a trillion dollars — and shifting that from the most vulnerable people in our communities — kids, pregnant women, elderly people in nursing homes, people with disabilities — taking health insurance away from them and using the savings to give a gigantic tax credit to billionaires. That's the foundation.
NCWLIFE: The finding that was cited often, by yourself and other Democrats and committee overnight, was about 13.7 million people losing coverage nationwide. There are 2.4 million Medicaid- insured people in the state of Washington and quite a few in your own district. So, that particular number, do you think that's close to the to what would be the real impact, or do you worry it would be higher than that?
Schrier: Obviously, I still worry that would be higher. ... But those numbers came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. So they score all of our bills to see how much they will cost — you know, how many people will lose insurance, those kinds of things. And that is standard, before we decide to vote on a bill, to know what the CBO score is. So that's a real number, but I want you to think about something else. You know, that counts the people who are on Medicaid and then the Medicaid expansion that most states adopted with the Affordable Care Act, that just like scooched the salary a little higher, but these are still people who are struggling to keep afloat. But then if you take away Medicaid, and those patients still get sick and still need care, but they end up going to the emergency room for care for more serious illnesses because they weren't treated early, then we all wait longer for the emergency room. The hospital isn't compensated for that care. And how do they stay afloat? Well, they stay afloat by charging our insurance companies more, which means our insurance rates go up.
We don't have data for this. I don't know if the CBO evaluated this, but you have to think, well, gosh, if people's insurance rates go up, how many of them are just going to decide, I just can't afford this anymore. So we don't really know. But think of our health care system is like a three-legged stool, and Medicaid is one of those legs. And if you chop that, it destabilizes everything.
NCWLIFE: The concern there, I take it, is for the knock-on effects that we don't see when we just talk about a raw number like 13.7 million people. Each of those people has a ripple out into the system.
Schrier: That's right. I mean, I'm 56, I have octogenarian parents, and there's a lot of people out there in that same situation. And if your elderly parents need to be in a nursing home, and three out of five of those seniors in nursing homes are covered by Medicaid — if they lose that coverage, then you know, the 50-year-old son or daughter has to leave their job to take care of their elderly parents. And what does that do to the economy and their family? I mean, it really can destabilize the economy if people do not have an ability to get health care.
NCWLIFE: These markup sessions are an opportunity for members to introduce amendments. You have, worked with other advocates for diabetic Americans toward insulin caps, in various areas of coverage. Were you able to put forward anything like that during this session? And what was the outcome?
Schrier: Yeah, I was. When you take away Medicaid from people, not only do they have to pay more for medicines, but if, if everything gets more expensive, then even people with private insurance will be paying more. And so how about we try to give people with private insurance a break by making it so that their co-pays are no more than $35 a month for insulin? And every Republican on the committee voted no on that, even though we did that for people on Medicare, and it has been wildly successful. It has been not just life-changing, but really life-saving. Because if you're like me and you have Type 1 diabetes, you cannot live without insulin. And it's a really big deal. I think they voted the wrong way.