Mike Johnson Wants To Cut Medicaid Benefits To Pay For Tax Cuts For The Rich

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) isn't just looking at cutting Medicaid, but deep benefit cuts for those on the program.

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Republicans have a problem. They want to give a tax cut of $4.7 trillion mostly to the wealthy and corporations, but they need to find enough spending cuts to pay for those tax cuts for the rich.

Election Day was barely over when some House Republicans started touting cutting Medicaid.

Punchbowl News reported that House Republicans are looking at even deeper cuts to the program:

House GOP negotiators now believe they will have to dig deeper into Medicaid spending to meet those targets, including potentially cutting benefits for enrollees, according to these sources. This will be a complicated political challenge. Some House Republicans are going to be skeptical about slashing Medicaid spending so heavily, and the White House will have to agree as well.

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Huge cuts to Medicaid — plus changes to food stamps and other social safety net programs — even as Republicans push tax cuts for wealthy Americans and corporations may become politically difficult. States that expanded Medicaid coverage via Obamacare or during the Covid-19 pandemic could get hit hard.

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“I’ll be very blunt — Medicaid isn’t just something for people who don’t want to work or on welfare,” (Rep. Jeff) Van Drew said (R-NJ). “Seventy-million people in this country get their health care through Medicaid now, because we increased the limits.”

The changes that House Republicans are considering to Medicaid would harm many of their own states and districts. Children, the elderly, and rural Americans would be hit disproportionately hard if Republicans mess with Medicaid.

As evidenced by Rep. Van Drew’s comments, House Republicans may not have the stomach to face a series of ads that would show kids losing their health insurance because Elon Musk and Donald Trump wanted to give themselves a tax cut.

To understand why these cuts might be Republican political suicide, it is important to know how the Medicaid program works.

Medicaid Is A Backbone Of US Healthcare