(Reuters) - Rehabilitating Puerto Rico should include removing caps on the island's federal Medicaid funding and give the U.S. territory's citizens access to earned income tax credits, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Friday.
In a letter to members of a congressional task force studying Puerto Rico's economy, Lew and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell urged the task force to focus on proposals to address Puerto Rico's healthcare crisis and restore economic growth.
The island is mired in $70 billion of debt and a 45 percent poverty rate. It receives less federal Medicaid funding than U.S. states and is expected in 2017 to exhaust other one-time federal health care funds.
The congressional task force, which includes Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Marco Rubio, Democrats Bill Nelson and Nydia Velasquez, among others, is expected to make recommendations on how to help the island back to economic stability.