Senator Josh Hawley introduced legislation on Tuesday that aims to roll back some of the major changes to Medicaid made in Republicans’ sweeping policy bill, legislation that the Missouri Republican voted to pass just two weeks ago.
President Trump signed that policy bill into law on July 4 after Republican leaders successfully wrangled a handful of G.O.P. holdouts, including Mr. Hawley.
The bill included new restrictions on key strategies many states rely on to finance Medicaid, changes that could hit some Republican-led states the hardest, a recent analysis shows. Mr. Hawley is now proposing to repeal those restrictions.
His bill would also double a rural hospital fund to $100 billion, from $50 billion, and extend the fund’s life span from five years to 10. Republican leaders had agreed to include the $50 billion to assuage concerns from Mr. Hawley and other Republicans that the Medicaid cuts would shutter some remote hospitals.
“President Trump has always said we have to protect Medicaid for working people. Now is the time to prevent any future cuts to Medicaid from going into effect,” Mr. Hawley said in a statement on the bill on Tuesday. He did not take issue with a strict work requirement to qualify for Medicaid that Republicans made law through their domestic policy bill.
In what amounted to a 360-degree return to his original position opposing the Medicaid cuts that are now law, he added: “I want to see Medicaid reductions stopped and rural hospitals fully funded permanently.”
Mr. Hawley had vowed in a statement released after the Senate passed the policy bill to “continue to do everything in my power to reverse future cuts to Medicaid.” But that promise rings somewhat hollow, given that his new bill is unlikely to garner the support needed to become law.
The 940-page bill that Republicans passed earlier this month included large chunks of the president’s domestic policy agenda. Had Mr. Hawley voted against it based on his concern over the cuts to Medicaid, he would also have been casting a no vote for a wide range of other Republican priorities, including extending the 2017 tax cuts, reductions to food assistance and new funding for defense and border security.
But his attempt to roll back the Medicaid cuts now struck at least one of Mr. Hawley’s Senate colleagues as puzzling.
“Just so I’m clear… he’s introducing a bill….to repeal the bill… he voted for….two weeks ago?” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, wrote on social media.