Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Earlier this week I noted that one-tenth of the Republican health care bill is taken up with a provision that denies Medicaid coverage to lottery winners. I figured it was just Republicans being Republicans, ever watchful for some poor person who’s gaming the system and getting something they don’t deserve. But no. The Rude Pundit point out—very rudely!—that the real reason is more prosaic. Here’s a snippet from a CBO report released a couple of years ago:

It turns out that Republicans aren’t just being dicks. They’re also playing the CBO scoring game. Half a billion dollars may not be much over ten years, but it’s better than nothing. And if you can help your CBO score and stick it to some poor schmoe who won the lottery—well, that’s just a win-win, isn’t it?

OK, BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS: This isn’t quite the real story, though it’s true that Republicans really are sort of obsessed with making sure no poor person ever gets a penny more than they deserve. Michigan was the trendsetter here. After the great midterm landslide of 2010 gave Republicans total control of the state, they passed a law requiring state agencies to automatically cross-check lottery winners with people receiving welfare benefits. The result was a lovely report about the “truly needy”:

Now, you may be thinking that this is pointless since Medicaid has an income test, and lottery winnings count as income. So if you win the lottery, you don’t qualify for Medicaid anyway.

But no! Not anymore, anyway. For complicated reasons—explained here in unbelievable detail if you really want to torture yourself—Democrats were forced to change the Medicaid rules in Obamacare so that lottery winnings counted as income only in the month they were received. That means you’d be ineligible for Medicaid that month, but then you’d go right back on Medicaid the next month even though you had this huge pile of lottery cash available to you.

Fixing this rank injustice became a hobbyhorse of Rep. Joe Pitts (R–Penn.), who introduced multiple bills designed to change Obamacare’s rule. Pitts retired last year, but no matter: other Republicans are now selflessly carrying on his work. And the complexity of this rule explains why lotteries take up six pages in their bill. It’s not just a matter of kicking lottery winners off the Medicaid rolls. Republicans have to define in detail how lottery income is handled. Lots of detail:

A State shall…include such winnings or income…as income received in the month in which such winnings or income (as applicable) is received if the amount of such winnings or income is less than $80,000….over a period of 2 months if the amount of such winnings or income (as applicable) is greater than or equal to $80,000 but less than $90,000….over a period of 3 months if the amount of such winnings or income (as applicable) is greater than or equal to $90,000 but less than $100,000….over a period of 3 months plus 1 additional month for each increment of $10,000 of such winnings or income (as applicable) received, not to exceed a period of 120 months (for winnings or income of $1,260,000 or more), if the amount of such winnings
or income is greater than or equal to $100,000.

So now you know. Republicans are fixated on lotteries and Medicaid because (a) poor people are getting away with something, and (b) the income reporting rule for lotteries was changed by the hated Obamacare. The CBO score is useful not because of the amount of money involved—which really is peanuts—but because it demonstrates that the rule affects the federal budget. That means it can be changed in a reconciliation bill. Which is what Republicans are trying to pass.

All clear now?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate