U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday urged Americans throughout the country who rely on Medicaid for their or a family member’s health care to call up GOP members of Congress and urge them not to cut benefits.
The senators’ comments came less than a day after President Donald Trump said during a joint interview with special government employee Elon Musk that aired on Fox News that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid “won’t be touched.”
“Now, if there are illegal migrants in the system, we’re going to get them out of the system, and all of that fraud,” Trump said. “But it’s not going to be touched.”
Trump has said for months that the GOP wouldn’t cut Social Security or Medicare, but his comments about leaving Medicaid out of the equation could cause significant hurdles for Republicans in Congress.
They have been eyeing the health care program for lower-income Americans as a way to pay for increases in spending on border security and defense, as well as a massive tax cuts package aimed at business.
Children, seniors in nursing homes
Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin said during the Democrats’ press conference that no one in the party wants to see waste or fraud, but cautioned that House Republicans’ plans would lead to more significant changes to Medicaid.
“Let me be clear, the massive cuts that we’re talking about in the House budget resolution are far beyond what efforts to pare back against fraud and waste would achieve,” Baldwin said. “We are talking about massive cuts to children, people with disabilities, rural Americans, seniors, and that is what we need to talk about.”
Baldwin said Medicaid provides health care for more than 70 million Americans, “including over 30 million children and 8 million seniors.”
“Medicaid provides essential care for about 10 million adults with disabilities,” she added. “Medicaid helps almost two-thirds of all nursing home residents have a safe roof over their heads.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said there is no way for Republicans in the House to meet the criteria they’ve laid out for themselves without reducing Medicaid spending.
“Nobody should lose sight of what exactly happened this morning, and that is Donald Trump endorsed the House budget resolution today, and this resolution mandates that $880 billion in cuts come from the House Energy and Commerce Committee,” Wyden said, referring to the panel with jurisdiction over health care. “I’ll just tell you, there is no plausible way to hit that target without hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid.
“And those cuts mean that benefits are going to get cut. Families are going to lose health insurance. Full stop.”
Trump makes opinion known
Republicans in Congress are hoping to pass legislation later this year that would boost funding on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, remake the country’s energy policy and extend the 2017 GOP tax law.
The House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, must first adopt a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions before they can use the complicated process to move their bill through both chambers without needing Democratic votes.
The two chambers have been at odds for months over whether to move the border security, defense and energy policies first and then come back to debate the tax law in a second bill, or bundle everything into one package.
Trump opted to stay on the sidelines of the debate for months, but changed course on Wednesday, posting on social media that he wants one “big, beautiful bill.”
Republicans are planning to pay for the new spending by cutting funding on government programs the GOP doesn’t believe are as important or necessary, with hundreds of billions in savings supposed to come from changes to Medicaid.
Cuts to be felt in every state, Dems say
It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday how Trump’s comments about leaving Medicaid alone would or would not change those plans. But Democrats said Americans should make their voices heard.
Baldwin said that since Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to get around negotiating with Democrats, the GOP owns every alteration they make to Medicaid, or other government programs.
Changes to Medicaid, she said, would impact Americans in red, blue and purple states.
“And in some cases, the more rural your state, the more severe the ramifications are for deep Medicaid cuts,” Baldwin said. “And so I do hope that not only will we be speaking with our Republican colleagues, but that the administrators of critical access hospitals, the chief medical officers of community health centers, will also be reaching out and sharing the ramifications of these cuts with them.”
New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said that had Trump been serious about finding and ending waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and other major health care programs, he wouldn’t have fired government watchdogs as part of a series of mass firings of federal employees.
“Look, the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services has a long record of uncovering fraud, going after wrongdoers, holding them accountable and getting the money back,” Hassan said. “But the Trump administration, as you know, has fired almost all of the inspectors general; the very people who go after fraud, waste and abuse in our government, and have a track record of getting results.
“So, again, they’re speaking out of both sides of their mouth here.”