Why does Medicaid and other low income benefits have a hard cut off on a specific income rather than role off proportionally as an individual makes more in the US?

Question

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In: Economics

Answer 1

Oddly, not one answer I see actually listened to OP’s question.

The answer, OP, is that conservatives use a hard cliff cutoff both to lower the amount of people getting any aid, and to maximize that line where people are making just a tiny bit over and get massively penalized, which then fuels resentment those same politicians campaign on to keep lowering that threshold.

In other words, what you’re proposing would be the rational and correct way to do these programs, as you slowly exceed the cutoff, there would be a window where aid would be reduced so as to not create a cliff.

For example, if you make $50 too much to qualify for Medicaid, you lost $6-10K instantly because they throw you off any assistance for your medical care, currently.

Rationally, it would ‘you make $50 over the line, we pay $50 less of your Medicaid, and so on, up to that 6-10k where it would be breaking even for you if you no longer got the aid.’