Editor, Gazette-Journal:
This is in response to Dr. Tatiana Atkins’ recent letter to the editor critical of the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB). I’d like to offer a different perspective to her editorial. Medicaid spending has ballooned in recent years—rising by more than 200 percent since 2008 and by about 51 percent since 2019 alone.
This explosion in costs is primarily driven by the expansion of eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, which extended coverage to able-bodied adults without dependents. Compounding the issue, an estimated 1.9 million undocumented immigrants are straining Medicaid resources in various states.
Thankfully, there is now legislation on the table that takes bold and necessary steps to address this crisis. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill would reduce federal Medicaid spending by roughly $1 trillion over the next 10 years—an urgently-needed correction to an unsustainable fiscal path.
The BBB achieves these savings in two key ways:...