Rep. Omar Rips Tennessee Over Medicaid Block Grant Plan

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., bashed Tennessee officials Tuesday for announcing a plan to convert its Medicaid program to a block grant that could affect as many as 1 million low-income residents.

"Half of kids in Tennessee get their healthcare through this program," Omar, in her first term, said on Twitter. "In what moral universe is taking away healthcare from children justified?"

Her tweet included a report in The Washington Post on the state's announcement of the proposal for TennCare, which is what the current Medicaid program is called.

Under the plan, the block grant would be used to pay for medical services for pregnant women, children, parents, the disabled and other primary groups of low-income people.

Initiated in the 1960s, Medicaid is an entitlement program in which the federal government pays states a specific percentage of the cost of care for anyone eligible for the healthcare coverage.

Republicans since the Reagan administration have been pushing for block grants over Medicaid, arguing that they would save money and give states more flexibility in providing coverage, the Post reports.

However, under block grants, the government would pay states a lump sum every year and free it from many of Medicaid's regulations, including what healthcare is covered and who would be admitted to the program.

But some aspects of Medicaid would be retained, including coverage of prescription drugs and payments to hospitals that treat a large share of low-income patients, the Post reports.

Gabe Roberts, Tennessee's Medicaid director, said the block-grant proposal would affect 1 million of the 1.4 million residents currently on TennCare.

The TennCare proposal must be approved by federal officials.

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