Inside the Times' sick scaremongering on New Yorkers losing health care

New York Post

4 days ago

The New York Times' lead headline Thursday was outright, deceptive fearmongering: 'Why 1.5 Million New Yorkers Could Lose Health Insurance Under Trump Bill.'
Yet the story was little more than a rewrite of Democratic campaign releases.
For starters, many of its figures come from health-care bosses and state officials ever eager to maximize their take in federal dollars — and with a keen interest in overestimating the damage.
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These sources, and the Times itself, won't talk much about the obscene amounts (tens of billions) that New York spends on government-subsidized health care — or how much of that bill Washington winds up footing.
Let alone note that many who lose coverage under this law can — and surely will — find other plans to cover their health care, whether public or private.
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Nor are they eager to admit how the state completely games the system to suck up federal bucks.
Or how individuals themselves game — or outright defraud — Medicaid.
Last year, the Empire Center's Bill Hammond found that 'as many as 3 million New Yorkers appear to be receiving state-sponsored health coverage from Medicaid or the Essential Plan despite having incomes above the eligibility limits' — but the state doesn't bother checking.
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That's millions who likely should lose their coverage because they don't qualify: Where's the injustice in the GOP's new law forcing the issue?
It's true that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act aims to (slightly) restrain the growth of federal Medicaid outlays, with an eye on keeping the program solvent for those who truly need it.
It does this by targeting much of the waste and fraud: One key provision, for example, requires young, able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work at least 80 hours a month. The Times somehow doesn't explain what's wrong with that.
Another cuts off federal aid for noncitizens: That includes hundreds of thousands in the Essential Plan, which is almost entirely funded by the feds, and reimburses providers at more than twice the Medicaid rate.
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And still, the plan has raked in so much federal dough that it's built huge surpluses — amounting to nearly an estimated $12 billion through the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Yet people who qualify for the Essential Plan are not the poorest of the poor; indeed, they make too much to qualify for Medicaid (which in itself cover about a third of New York's population, going far above the poverty line).
Voters across the nation don't want to cover noncitizens (particularly illegal migrants); if New York politicians insist on it, they can find the cash elsewhere in the bloated state budget.
Look: Medicaid outlays have soared this last decade, as Democrats juke the rules as a stealthy route to nationalized health insurance; this is a huge reason why Uncle Sam's deficits now reach $2 trillion a year.
And the GOP law only begins to dent future increases.
Liberals and Democrats are desperate to paint this modest restraint as dealing a harsh blow to the needy: Telling the truth won't help them win any voters back.
How pathetic that they see their best interests served by leaving Medicaid, and the nation, on track to go bankrupt.