The Republican Party is eyeing sweeping cuts to Medicaid, a program that the poorest Americans rely on for health care, to finance President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and plans for mass deportation. Democrats say those plans could cost some 22 million people their health care, which they argue would betray Trump's promises on the campaign trail to lower costs for working Americans.
That finding comes amid reports that Trump’s unilateral decision to freeze federal funding resulted in whole states being frozen out of the Medicaid payment system, despite claims from the White House that the program would be unaffected. The acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Matthew Vaeth, had said the freeze was aimed at “ending ‘wokeness'"; the freeze was put on hold by a judge late Tuesday, with critics accusing the administration of abrogating Congress' constitutional power to dictate federal spending.
“This is a blatant attempt to rip away health care from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a post.
While more than 72 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid grapple with the uncertainty introduced by the Trump administration, congressional Republicans are eyeing more permanent and sweeping cuts to the program.
The New York Times reports that Republicans on the House Budget Committee are floating a menu of cuts to the program, including new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, limits on federal matching funds and new eligibility requirements. The GOP is also considering a variety of provisions aimed at undercutting Medicaid expansion in the states.
"There's some talk about work requirements and various aspects, but we haven't determined the final parameters of it yet," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters earlier this month.
Even changes short of elimination could kick many people off the program. According to an analysis of proposed cuts from the Democratic National Committee, shared with Salon, proposals to curb Medicaid expansion alone — which extends coverage to Americans with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line — could drive nearly 22 million people off the program.
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“Trump lied to the American people for months on the campaign trail, promising to lower their costs on Day One. It’s clear from Trump’s first week in office that he’s focused on the bottom line of his billionaire backers, not working families,” Sam Cornale, executive director of the DNC, said in a statement.
In a state-by-state breakdown, the DNC analysis found that the Medicaid expansion proposals would affect over 5 million Californians and 2.3 million New Yorkers, as well as more than 900,000 people in Louisiana, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The proposals would also put some 640,000 Arizonans, 689,000 Oregonians and 730,000 Virginians at risk of losing insurance.
“Americans all over the country rely on Medicaid for health care coverage and these cuts would devastate families, including in many communities that carried Trump this election cycle," Cornale said.
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