Starr worries that congressional Republicans are not only acting to repeal President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), but aim to restructure Medicaid into a program with federal-budget caps so tight it would break down one of the principal Great Society health protections of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Medicaid and the Medicare program have been fundamental to health care in the United States since 1965. 

Many of those customers could lose their health insurance under the new bill, called the American Health Care Act, which would change Medicaid funding so that states would be forced to choose Medicaid funding as a block grant or as a per capita cap. Healthcare advocates believe neither funding mechanism will cover California’s ongoing needs. They have spoken out strongly against the bill.