As the U.S. Senate takes up the Congressional House Republican's budget bill, Maine Independent Senator Angus King sums it up this way:
"Somewhere between disastrous and catastrophic," he said.
King said the bill would kick tens of thousands of Mainers off of Medicaid health insurance because of work requirements and other changes. And he said that most able-bodied adults enrolled in the program already work.
"My concern is that in the pursuit of eliminating one fraudster, we may be eliminating coverage for 5 people that need it," he said.
King points to Arkansas, which was the first state to institute Medicaid work requirements in 2018. A study found that 18,000 people lost coverage, mostly due to red tape, and the program didn't significantly increase employment.
"To save money by kicking people off of health insurance so you can give tax cuts to people that make millions of dollars a year strikes me as a very poor set of priorities," King said, referring to the Congressional budget proposal.
Republican Senator Susan Collins has said she supports reasonable work requirements. King said he'd have to know how 'reasonable' is defined and how the requirement would be administered.
