President Donald Trump’s administration made explicit this weekend its commitment to an old GOP strategy for managing Medicaid, the federal-state insurance plan that covers low-income people — turning control of the program to states and capping what the federal government spends on it each year.

The law’s removal not only could hurt the 400,000 Pennsylvania residents who found coverage under its insurance exchanges, but also the 670,000 people covered statewide under a related expansion of Medicaid. Many of those patients represent the state’s most vulnerable: low-income families concentrated in rural communities or urban centers such as the Lehigh Valley.

For many years, our state and federal leaders have made a big investment in keeping kids healthy by increasing their access to health care coverage. It’s a little-known fact that some of the greatest beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are children.

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and Treasurer Joe Torsella today warned Congress that eliminating the Medicaid expansion provision in the Affordable Care Act could jeopardize health care for more than 675,000 Pennsylvanians and push the state’s structural budget deficit even higher.

President Donald Trump is ordering federal agencies to undermine Obamacare through regulatory action, a move that could weaken enforcement of the requirement for Americans to buy health coverage and give insurers leeway to drop some benefits.