Former Presidential Candidate Howard Dean predicts that Republicans are unlikely to stop the federal Medicaid reimbursements that help millions of low-income Americans pay for out-of-pocket medical costs.

RIPR’s health reporter Lynn Arditi on Howard Dean’s lecture to medical students at Brown University. He stressed the need to reward doctors for healthier patients.

President Trump recently repeated his threats to cut off the co-called cost-sharing payments to insurance companies after Senate Republicans failed to pass their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

“Obamacare is now polling at around 60 percent approval,’’ Dean said. “That never happened when he was president but it’s happening now because people now understand this bill and what it does.”

The former Governor of Vermont made the comments yesterday after a visit to Providence, R.I. to lecture a class of medical students at Brown University.

On Wednesday, a White House spokesman said the administration will reimburse insurers for the current month’s payments next week. Beyond that, the future of the payments remains uncertain.

Some 7 million low-income Americans – including 16,400 Rhode Islanders – benefit from the federal reimbursements. 

Lynn joined The Public's Radio as health reporter in 2017 after more than three decades as a journalist, including 28 years at The Providence Journal. Her series "A 911 Emergency," a project of the 2019...