text: One element missing from this article is the way in which gutting Medicaid will increase costs for the rest of us.
  When an individual presents at hospital with liver or kidney failure, the hospital treats them and that treatment is not cheap.
  Under the current system, they are almost certainly insured - often by Medicaid.
  Under the proposed system (reduced Medicaid, ending the subsidies for private insurance), they often won't be.
  The result:  hospitals will go back to doubling or tripling their charges so that the patients who can pay can cover the patients who can't.