Summary
The Congressional Budget Office analysis confirms that House Republicans’ budget plan would require significant cuts to Medicaid, contradicting GOP leadership claims.
The CBO found that to reach the $880 billion in spending reductions assigned to the Energy and Commerce Committee, substantial cuts to health programs are necessary.
With Republicans pledging not to touch Medicare, the burden would fall on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Democrats argue these cuts would affect the 70+ million Americans relying on Medicaid, which covers 40% of births and is the largest funder of nursing home care. Republicans suggest implementing work requirements and reducing “waste, fraud and abuse.”
The opposition needs to be more forceful about this kind of stuff. They’re always seemingly accepting the frame that you need to make cuts to fix the deficit (or even the frame that deficits altogether are bad), but never talking about how the wealthy aren’t contributing to the revenue part of things.
Biden made a good step by hiring a bunch of IRS personnel, but they barely talk about that, even now that Musk is firing these people in the name of ‘efficiency’, even though every dollar you put in the IRS gives you more than $2 in return.