Robbing the poor to pay the rich. In order to pay for their personal tax cuts, House Republicans are proposing raising Medicaid premiums and co-pays for the country’s poorest earners, including individuals making as little as $15,650 a year, according to new reporting in The American Prospect. In addition to kicking as many as 8 million people off Medicaid and causing some 34,000 additional deaths, the budget proposal would impose new work requirements on recipients (61 percent of whom are already employed) in a move that critics say will force qualified beneficiaries out of Medicaid with red tape. From the NY Times, May 7, 2