WASHINGTON -- The House Republicans' health care bill would no longer take into account the high cost of living in New Jersey and other states when determining when Medicaid will pay for a nursing home.
The American Health Care Act would cut by one-third the value of a home in New Jersey that senior citizens or people with disabilities can exclude from assets before becoming eligible for Medicaid, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive research group in Washington.
The center said the provision could force seniors and people with disabilities to sell their homes in order to receive Medicaid.
The measure is not in the Senate version of the Obamacare repeal effort, but could survive if conference committee called to reconcile the different bills.
New Jersey is one of just nine states and the District of Columbia that allow residents to exclude more than the federal minimum house value of $560,000 from assets. The state uses the maximum $840,000.
The House Republican bill would require all states to use the $560,000 figure.
For the Garden State, that's a decrease of one-third of the value of a house that can be excluded for purposes of Medicaid. It puts New Jersey -- whose average listing price was $362,025, according to Trulia -- on an equal footing with West Virginia, with an average home price of $172,836.
The legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office said would leave 23 million more Americans without health coverage, also would phase out the extra federal funding for states like New Jersey that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and give states a fixed sum for the program rather than covering all eligible recipients.
New Jersey taxpayers would have to come up with an extra $810 million to cover the loss of federal funds or else take away health care from some of its poorest residents, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The savings would fund tax cuts for corporations and wealthy Americans.
The House Republican measure is very unpopular among Americans. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey said 48 percent of U.S. adults said the House measure was a bad idea, while just 16 percent said it was a good idea. The survey of 900 adults was conducted June 17-20 and had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
President Donald Trump, who embraced the legislation, nevertheless acknowledged Sunday that he called it "mean."
"That was my term," Trump said on the Fox News Channel. "I want to see a bill with heart."
The Senate is debating its own version of the health care legislation, which closely tracks the House measure.
Even though Senate Republicans drafted their bill behind closed doors and ignored requests from their Democratic counterparts to work with them, and the legislation is being considered under parliamentary rules that allow the GOP majority to pass it without Democratic votes, Trump on Monday blamed the excluded opposition party for any problems in getting it through the Senate.
Both the House and Senate bills violate Trump's campaign promises to provide health care for everyone and to not cut Medicaid funding.
Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted Sunday that there were no reductions in Medicaid despite the CBO saying the House bill reduced spending on the program by $834 billion over 10 years.
"These are not cuts to Medicaid," she said on ABC's "This Week."
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.