House Passes Budget Resolution That Threatens to Reduce Medicaid

Earlier this week in a 217-215 vote, the House of Representatives passed a budget resolution that marks the beginning of efforts to reshape the Medicaid program.

An identical budget resolution would have to be passed in both the House and Senate for Congress to then invoke the budget reconciliation process. This process enables lawmakers to bypass a Senate filibuster — an attempt to delay or block a vote on a piece of legislation — and pass a reconciliation bill with a simple majority of Republican votes in both chambers.

At this stage, the budget resolution sets proposed funding levels, while the budget reconciliation process will determine the actual tax cuts and spending reductions for programs like Medicaid.

What Happens Next? The next step requires the Senate to adopt an identical version of the House passed budget resolution. After that, the Senate Finance and House Energy & Commerce committees must make the actual policy changes needed to generate savings. This process will take months.

The House Energy & Commerce committee has been charged with generating $880 billion in savings. A large proportion of savings would likely come from cuts in Medicaid spending. This could lead to a sharp increase in the number of uninsured individuals and cause more than 20 million Americans to lose their Medicaid coverage. States may be forced to reduce the range of covered mental health and substance use services, leading to lower reimbursement rates. This could drive individual providers, such as licensed professional counselors, to withdraw from the Medicaid program. Additionally, a rise in the number of uninsured Americans would inevitably increase uncompensated care costs for community-based mental health and substance use treatment providers.

The scale of these Medicaid cuts could be devastating to mental healthcare access. Please contact your Congressional representatives today and ask them to protect Medicaid! Take Action now.

If you have questions or would like to become involved in our advocacy efforts, contact our Government Affairs and Public Policy team at advocacy@counseling.org.