'Going to revolt': GOP budget bill 'manages to unite two health industry sectors normally at war'

10 April

House Speaker Mike Johnson at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

During the 2024 presidential race, many Democrats warned that if Donald Trump won, cuts to important safety-net programs would be on the table. Trump, however, insisted that he wouldn't cut either Social Security or Medicare.

Now that President Trump is back in the White House, GOP lawmakers are proposing major Medicaid cuts. And according to Politico, they "have managed to unite two health industry sectors normally at war: insurers and hospitals."

In an article published on April 10, Politico reporters Kelly Hooper and Daniel Payne explain, "Lobbyists for both industries, faced with the prospect of losing billions of dollars in fees, are scrambling to convince lawmakers that tens of millions of low-income Americans who rely on the program will suffer. The cuts proposed in a House Republican budget blueprint could run as high as $880 billion over 10 years — more than 10 percent of federal Medicaid spending."

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The lobbyists, according to Hooper and Payne, "are leaning into the argument that it's voters, even more than their businesses, that are going to revolt."

"The alliance of the two industries highlights the magnitude of the potential threat they face," the Politico journalists report. "The groups are racing to protect their bottom lines as hospitals consider having to care for more uninsured people and insurers foresee reduced enrollment in their plans. Health care providers and groups representing them are pressing meetings on Capitol Hill — more than 150 hospitals sent representatives to Washington in March — and launching six-figure ad campaigns in the Washington media market urging lawmakers to avoid cuts."

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), Hooper and Payne note, is among the Democrats who is "hammering the GOP" on possible Medicaid cuts.

Murray recently told reporters, "Cuts to Medicaid at the scale Republicans are directing will mean hospitals and clinics — especially in our rural areas — will close their doors."

Read the full Politico article at this link.

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