Toomey says Wolf should stop ‘carrying on’ about proposed Medicaid cut

June 26--U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey accused Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf of mischaracterizing the Senate GOP's health care plan and said the governor should stop "carrying on" about a proposed cut in Medicaid funding.

The GOP health plan unveiled last week would require states to gradually contribute more toward the cost of a Medicaid expansion included in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The expansion made Medicaid available to working-age adults with no disabilities or dependents who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. In states such as Pennsylvania that opted into the expansion, the federal government agreed to pay 100 percent of expansion costs through 2016, 95 percent starting this year and 90 percent by 2020.

"It's interesting when Gov. Wolf carries on at great length about how essential and how vital this coverage of this new population is ... as long as the federal government is paying 90 percent of it," Toomey, R-Lehigh County, said in an interview at the Tribune-Review's North Shore office.

"But if the federal government is only paying 52 percent of it and the state is supposed to pay 48, suddenly he's threatening to throw people off," Toomey said. "It does speak to just how much he values this expansion."

Toomey noted that the state covers 48 percent of all other Medicaid costs.

J.J. Abbott, a Wolf spokesman, fired back by arguing that "Toomey and his colleagues in Congress are reneging on the commitment the federal government made to more than 700,000 Pennsylvanians."

Toomey argued that it isn't financially sustainable for the federal government to cover 90 percent of the costs. He said the GOP proposal would "over the course of the next seven years gradually transition to" requiring Pennsylvania to pay 48 percent of the expansion costs -- or, as Toomey described it, "their fair share of this cost."

Pennsylvania added 700,000 people under the Medicaid expansion.

The governor's office said Pennsylvania would need $3 billion to cover the added costs of the GOP health plan requirement. The state currently has a projected $3 billion budget deficit.

Wolf has consistently hammered Republican lawmakers in Congress over their proposals to dismantle much of the Affordable Care Act. Last week, he called the Senate plan "crueler" than the House plan because of what he described as "deeper and more devastating cuts to Medicaid." Earlier this month, Wolf, a Democrat, and governors from six other states -- including three Republicans -- sent a letter to Senate leaders outlinining their concerns about proposed health care changes in Congress.

Tom Fontaine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7847, tfontaine@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @FontainePGH.

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