While most Trump administration officials have avoided weighing in on specifics while House Republicans grapple with how exactly they will try to discreetly slash funding for Medicaid, the Trump admin guy tasked with running the very office overseeing Medicaid and Medicare services offered his opinion on Monday.
Mehmet Oz — the former TV talk show host and failed Senate candidate who now runs the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — suggested during a talk at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles that he is in support of at least partially scrapping the Medicaid expansion for millions who gained access to the program through Obamacare. It’s the exact type of cut to the program that vulnerable Republicans in the House are begging leadership to not consider — or at least not talk about too loudly in public.
“Because we pay 90% of the money for the able-bodied person and only, let’s say, 65% for a traditionally Medicaid poor, young, old or disabled person, it actually moves money to the able-bodied population,” Oz said, mischaracterizing the makeup of the demographic that gained access to Medicaid coverage when President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, allowing states to expand Medicaid coverage to people who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The federal government does pay a larger share of expenses for people who qualified under the expansion versus regular Medicaid recipients. But cutting or even reducing federal spending for those covered under the expansion would put health care coverage for 20 million people in jeopardy.
Additionally, per Bloomberg:
Reducing federal funding could either leave states with budget holes, or prompt them to drop the Medicaid expansion altogether and leave people uninsured. Some states have laws that would automatically trigger an end to expanded Medicaid coverage if federal funding falls below a certain threshold.
More Destruction In Mike Waltz’s Messaging Path
The messaging app that it seems like Mike Waltz was using to archive group chats during a Cabinet meeting last week has suspended its service due to what appears to be the work of hackers, who may have gained access to files from the app. Per NBC News:
A spokesperson for Smarsh, the company that owns TeleMessage, said Monday that the company “is investigating a potential security incident. Upon detection, we acted quickly to contain it and engaged an external cybersecurity firm to support our investigation.”
“Out of an abundance of caution, all TeleMessage services have been temporarily suspended,” the spokesperson said.
Why?
As he publicly flirts with the idea of sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons, Trump apparently is also interested in reopening one of America’s most notorious prisons that once, infamously, housed some of the country’s most dangerous criminals: Alcatraz.
The prison was shuttered in the 1960s because the infrastructure was crumbling and the costs to maintain the facility were skyrocketing. A deep dive from CNN: Trump wants to reopen one of America’s most notorious prisons. Here’s how Alcatraz earned its reputation
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What We Are Reading
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Illinois Democrat Schakowsky won’t seek Congress reelection in 2026 after 14 terms
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I know why DonOLD doesn’t like immigrants, or he doesn’t like the current flood of immigrants that are currently come to America. But that because he’s racist, pure and simple.
With that said I haven’t read or heard anyone on the right talk about how climate change will affect the world’s population. That people in areas that will be most effected will have to pick up and move because where their ancestors settled will be uninhabitable. And even without climate change driving some of this moving from here to there, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that humans have been migrating from point to point for as long as there have been humans on this blue marble. We can’t stop it, we can try and manage it. And won’t just be us, all countries will have to deal with this.
Drinks
But her emails, am i right?
Mike Waltz proves you can be both treasonous AND stupid.
If these people in TFG’s cabinet knew anything about anything, they could be even more dangerous. But the constant lies are bad enough.
Oz is a salesman and not a particularly scrupulous one either but the bar for honesty in this administration is so low that comparatively he could actually be considered better than most.
Hanna Arendt had a lot to say about political lying including its corrosive effect on the public as trust is lost on all statements, whether true or false. But this administration doesn’t just deceive, it’s riddled with ignorance, incompetence, and self-deception, so I keep coming back to Frankfurt’s analysis on bullshit.
I suspect a lot of these kkklowns don’t know what the truth is and don’t care either. One of the first things I recall thinking about Trump back when he first ran, even before the public litany of his sordid personal and business practices contradicted his bombast, was “this guy is major bullshit artist and he will never cop to it like a man; it ain’t friendly and it ain’t just political.”Jeebus, what a mess.