GOP in Indiana push bill to undermine state Medicaid program

Plus, Fair Share America’s executive director on why we must reject Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. 

Indiana Republicans on Tuesday advanced Senate Bill 2 out of committee, a bill that would implement new work requirements, and quarterly eligibility checks and prevent Indiana’s Medicaid program from advertising itself. 

The bill, first introduced by state Sen. Ryan Mishler (R-Bremen), originally contained language that would have capped the program at 500,000 participants. This resulted in some 200,000 Hoosiers being removed from the Healthy Indiana Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. Advocates for SB 2 claim that this portion of the bill would reign in the state’s Medicaid expenditures, but it has since been removed via amendment. 

“You are going to see most of our new revenue in this budget is going to Medicaid, and that’s going to take away from other programs and services," Mishler said at a committee hearing on Tuesday. "So I just feel we have to get Medicaid under control. It’s not the cure; it’s just one piece of a bigger puzzle that we have to work on with Medicaid.”

According to Mishler, the program’s costs have grown by $5 billion over the past four years, in large part due to the response to a significant increase in participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, critics of the bill say it will not bring costs down; those removed from the program will be forced to rely on emergency rooms for care, which will still cost the state. 

“Cutting Medicaid does not save money, it just moves the cost around and makes healthcare more expensive for everyone,” Wade Catt, a medical student, told the state’s House Public Health Committee. “Senate Bill 2 isn’t fiscally responsible; it’s just short-sighted, harmful, and unjust.”

And resistance to the reforms regarding new, stricter worker requirements has been substantial. Alison Case, a physician with HealthNet who spoke before the House Public Health Committee, explained that while many of her patients on Medicaid have jobs, issues stemming from chronic illnesses can often undermine their ability to consistently hold down work. 

“The people I see need this coverage badly. It quite literally keeps them alive,” Case said.

However, despite protestations from the medical community, SB 2 ultimately passed the committee along party lines, with eight Republicans in favor and four Democrats against. The bill will now head to the House, and if passed there, it would end up on Gov. Mike Braun’s (R) desk — whose administration has openly supported it. 

OP-ED: Americans know a bad deal when they see it. Now’s the time to offer an alternative vision

By Kristen Crowell 

Most Americans share a common belief: that our country should be a place where people have the opportunity to lead safe, secure and happy lives. Today, Americans are protesting the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s control over it for exactly this reason: They know the Trump-Musk agenda is about taking away resources families need — like Medicaid, nutrition assistance, education funding — and giving them to the already very rich in the form of tax breaks.

What they might not know is that this intentional distribution of America’s wealth to the very top began decades ago and has been a drag on our shared progress ever since. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are about to make it much worse.

Starting in the 1980s, a group of individuals and corporations who wanted to pay next to nothing in taxes organized and aggressively funded a political movement to relentlessly pursue tax cuts and anti-public funding measures, masquerading them as drivers of economic growth (the wealth will “trickle down”) and responsible budgeting.

Instead, these tax policies have led to a staggering concentration of wealth among a small, mostly white elite. Work is taxed at a higher rate than wealth. Working families, meanwhile, are increasingly reliant on debt to cover basic necessities, often with little to no financial safety net.

The anti-tax movement also orchestrated steep declines in public investments that once helped create the American middle class. Wealthy individuals, bolstered by their tax windfalls, turned to privatized programs and institutions, like private schools and hospitals, exacerbating the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The Trump administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education, his hints at privatizing Veterans Affairs hospitals, the IRS, and the Social Security Administration are just the latest in America’s turn toward abundance for some and scarcity for the rest of us.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. And most Americans believe it shouldn’t be.

Over two decades ago, I became an organizer to fight for more funding for my kids’ schools.

The deep unfairness of our tax system drove me to keep pushing, eventually becoming a statewide organizer for greater resources for families across America. By 2022, I was consulting on a successful campaign to pass the so-called Massachusetts Millionaire’s Tax, which now brings in over $2 billion annually for public education and transportation. I’ve helped other states build similar campaigns, ensuring that the wealthy and giant corporations pay more of their fair share so that everyone can benefit from better education, quality child care, well-maintained roads, and more.

This is the America that most of us want to see — a country with less wealth concentration at the top and more investment in our future and the future of our children.

But the anti-tax movement has been a powerful force in American politics. The decline in public sector spending they orchestrated created a vicious cycle: underfunded government programs performed poorly, bolstering the argument that the public sector is wasteful and inefficient and should be further defunded.

We must turn this tide and the massive and widespread public resistance to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s actions to strip families of the resources they rely on might just create enough public backlash to help us do it.

That’s the work I’m leading as the executive director of Fair Share America, an organization helping organizers across the country build public awareness and advocate for public revenues and a fairer tax code.

During the last congressional recess, which is when Congress returns home to their districts, we helped organize over 50 town hall meetings and events where people urged their members of Congress to reject the Trump-Musk budget cuts and Trump’s plan to further slash taxes for the very rich at the expense of the rest of us.

During this week’s recess, we expect to see even more public action as more and more people become aware of how anti-tax, anti-revenue policies threaten their livelihoods, health, schools, and communities.

As we saw while recovering from the pandemic, direct investments in families alongside a fairer tax code that rewards work over wealth, help grow our economy in better, more equitable, and sustainable ways.

This is our opportunity to reject the anti-tax, anti-public investment agenda that drags most of us down, and instead, start to make the rich and big corporations pay their fair share and make more investments in our collective futures. We must seize it.