While no one was watching Sunday night, House Republicans released their official plan to only partly pay for President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," which will cut taxes for the rich and finance his evil deportations. As expected, the legislation will cut health care for millions of Americans.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee's legislation would cut $912 billion over the next decade, with $715 billion coming from Medicaid, the popular program that provides health insurance to more than 71 million Americans annually.
“Congressional Republicans and President Trump rightly pledged to protect Medicaid benefits and coverage—this bill fails that test. It is imperative Republicans go back to the drawing board; too many lives depend on it,” Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation for American Hospitals, said in a statement.
The plan would make cuts to Medicaid by capping provider taxes, which states use to extract matching federal funds to cover Medicaid costs.
The bill would also institute work requirements, which create headaches for states to verify residents’ eligibility and ultimately cause people to lose their coverage because of confusing paperwork.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, work requirements are unnecessary because the vast majority of Medicaid recipients are either working, caregiving, not working because they are disabled or sick, or enrolled in school.
The bill would also get rid of the expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that Democrats passed in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan. This would force millions of people to lose their benefits and become unable to afford health insurance.
Ultimately, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that analyzes legislation, reported that this bill would lead 13.7 million people to lose health insurance over the next decade.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri says that cutting Medicaid would be “politically suicidal” for his fellow Republicans.
Republicans have been lying for weeks that their budgetary demand for the House Energy and Commerce Committee would not lead to Medicaid cuts. But the actual bill text shows that millions of people will indeed lose their Medicaid benefits if it passes—which at this point seems doubtful as warring factions within the GOP appear unhappy with negotiations.
“This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone. The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking health care away from millions of Americans. No where in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’—they’re cutting people’s health care and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a news release.
But cutting Medicaid could be politically costly for Republicans, with poll after poll showing that voters do not want to cut Medicaid to finance tax cuts for the wealthy.
Even the worst GOP senator knows that cutting Medicaid is a bad move, warning in an op-ed for The New York Times on Monday that it would be “politically suicidal” for his fellow Republicans.
“If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It’s that simple. And that pattern will replicate in states across the country,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote. “Republicans need to open their eyes: Our voters support social insurance programs. More than that, our voters depend on those programs.”
As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Correction: The previous headline for this story incorrectly stated that 13.7 million would be kicked off Medicaid. However, 13.7 million people would lose access to health insurance overall, including those who would lose access to Medicaid.
Campaign Action
