Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Utah advocates express concern over proposed Medicaid cuts affecting children's health care.
- Ciriac Alvarez Valle highlights potential impacts on low-income kids needing medical care.
SALT LAKE CITY — As Republicans in the U.S. House propose steep cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years, advocates in Utah say they're worried children will lose access to medical care.
"These cuts are going to impact the low-income kids in our state who need it most," said Ciriac Alvarez Valle, senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Voices for Utah Children.
About 46% of Utahns enrolled in Medicaid are kids, and 18% of births in the Beehive State are covered by the health insurance program for low-income people, Alvarez Valle told KSL-TV.
The program also covers services for aging adults and those with disabilities, with enrollment at more than 210,000 statewide as of April, according to the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
It's not clear yet exactly how many in Utah could lose coverage under the plan advancing in Congress, part of a larger tax package that's a priority of President Donald Trump. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 47,000 people in Utah could lose coverage on the low end; 79,000 on the high end.
The plan would make other significant changes to Medicaid, including imposing a work requirement. Separate from the federal effort, Utah's proposing its own state-level work requirement for certain Medicaid recipients, designed to "increase their sense of purpose, help build a healthy lifestyle, and increase employment and wage earnings of able-bodied adults while focusing funding on the state's neediest individuals."
Alvarez Valle noted the health department estimates about 90% of those subject to the requirement qualify for an exemption.
"Really, what we're adding is red tape," she said.
Utah Rep. Blake Moore voted in favor of the tax package last week as a member of the House Budget Committee, calling it a "big step to limiting that future debt growth." Sen. Mike Lee voiced his disapproval, saying he doesn't think the cuts to Medicaid go far enough.
