‘Confirms our worst fears,' ‘Nothing too outlandish:' Connecticut lawmakers on federal Medicaid reductions

Yahoo

12-05-2025

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Connecticut lawmakers offered their assessments of the plan released Sunday evening by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives that would see hundreds of billions in Medicaid spending reductions over the next decade.
'If confirms our worst fears,' State Sen. Matt Lesser, a Democrat who co-chairs the legislature's Human Services Committee, said.
House Republicans unveil Medicaid cuts that Democrats warn will leave millions without care
Lesser and other leading Democrats have raised alarm bells over an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which predicted the bill's provisions would cause 8.6 million people would lose their health coverage over the next decade.
The CBO said that the plan would reduce the federal deficit by $715 billion in the next 10 years — fulfilling a significant portion of the House Republicans' goal to find $1.5 trillion in savings. Congressional Republicans are working in tandem with President Donald Trump to craft a 'big, beautiful' cost reduction plan accompanied by $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts.
Republicans in the Connecticut legislature pushed back on the Democrats' sense of alarm.
'I don't think anything that we see in this bill is too outlandish,' State Rep. Tammy Nuccio, the top Republican representative on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, said.
Nuccio said the bulk of the lost coverage would come as a result of new work requirements included in the GOP proposal. She said she generally supports such requirements. Nuccio, a senior member of the state House Republican caucus, also signaled support for a provision of the congressional Republicans' plan that would reduce overall Medicaid funding to states that provide health coverage to those in the country illegally.
Connecticut is one of those states that would stand to lose if the plan goes into effect. Republicans have long criticized the Democratic-backed policy of extending the state's Medicaid program, called HUSKY, to many minors without legal status.
The two parties also clashed over a provision of the GOP plan that would enact additional eligibility checks and income verification. Democrats like Lesser see it as a thinly-veiled attempt to force people off of their health coverage via bureaucratic red tape.
'What it's gonna mean is that the folks who brough you the Department of Government Efficiency are gonna be just saddling people with paperwork,' Lesser said.
Nuccio fired back.
'I think if the state of Connecticut workers are doing their job and they're helping people make sure that they have their eligibility in, they're not gonna see a lot of people kicked off,' she said.
The Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA) offered a blunt assessment of the bill.
'This is a bad bill for Connecticut hospitals and for our patients,' Paul Kidwell, CHA's senior vice president for policy, said.
USDA funding cuts have harsh impact on Connecticut food pantries
Kidwell zeroed in on a provision of the bill that would effectively cap the amount of federal Medicaid dollars that can flow into a state under a mechanism known as a provider tax. Most states utilize a provider tax to help boost their own Medicaid spending, which in turn leads to more federal dollars under the cost-sharing arrangement between states and the federal government that underlies the entire Medicaid system. Critics have characterized the provider tax as a loophole which allows hospitals and state governments to get more money from the federal government.
Still, Kidwell said a freeze on the provider tax would mean less money for hospitals at a time when healthcare costs are rising and the rate at which providers are reimbursed for care under Medicaid has remained stagnant for years.
'When the state can't bring in those federal dollars to support Medicaid, hospitals and other providers have to go try to find those resources from other places,' Kidwell said.
In other words: someone, perhaps those utilizing employer-based health plans, will end up footing the bill.
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