'Pushed up to the edge of the cliff': Republican plans would impact millions of Americans

The nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its report on five separate Republican proposed policies to slash federal spending on Medicaid, a program that currently serves about one in five Americans. The report finds that under the GOP proposals, millions of Americans would be kicked off and have no medical coverage.

The CBO report shows that 2.3 million and nearly nine million Americans would be kicked off Medicaid, based on the proposed Republican cuts to the critical safety net program. Those cuts would lead to no insurance for about half of the Americans removed from the program. The proposals would reduce the federal deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, but those savings are expected to be used to pay for the Trump administration's tax cuts, which are largely expected to benefit wealthy Americans the most.

The President has called that legislation his “big, beautiful bill,” but the Congressional Black Caucus calls the proposals "the largest Medicaid cut in history."

As far back as a decade ago, President Donald Trump vowed, “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican, and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”

In March of this year, a White House "fact check" insisted, "The Trump Administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. President Trump himself has said it (over and over and over again)."

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The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, finds that: "No matter how these tax cuts are financed, the result will hurt most working families, especially low-income households. The most damaging way to finance TCJA [Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] extensions would be with spending cuts for programs like SNAP or Medicaid."

It's unclear if the House would vote to enact one, several, or perhaps all of the proposals, although Politico reports House Speaker Mike Johnson has said a proposal that would kick 5.5 million off Medicaid is off the table.

"The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been tasked with reducing the deficit by $880 billion, and Republican leaders are eyeing changes to Medicaid to achieve a large portion of that total amount," Politico adds. "Republicans are coalescing around work requirements for beneficiaries, more frequent eligibility checks in the program and cracking down on coverage for noncitizens. But as they look for more significant savings, divisions have only grown, with hardliners pushing for even steeper cuts and moderates increasingly wary."

But about six in ten non-senior (19-64 year-old) Medicaid enrollees are already working. Of the 40 percent who are not, barriers include being in school, being a family caregiver, illness or disability, or being unable to find work, according to KFF.

Two top Democrats requested the CBO report: U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

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“Republicans continue to use smoke and mirrors to try to trick Americans into thinking they aren’t going to hurt anybody when they proceed with this reckless plan, but fighting reality is an uphill battle,” Senator Wyden said in a statement. “The bottom line is that the Republican bill is going to cut health care for kids, seniors, Americans with disabilities and working families, and Democrats are going to fight to stop it.”

One Republican who has been outspoken about limiting cuts to Medicaid to $500 billion, U.S. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, says he is open to increasing work requirements and stepping up eligibility checks—which are administrative costs—but blasted his colleagues who want to pass a bill with massive proposed reductions of up to nearly $900 billion, along with the way they are attempting to do it.

“Here’s the tactic they’ve been using: ‘Don’t worry about the Senate. They’ll fix it.’ And now we’re getting ready to take our third vote on this,” Bacon said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “We feel like we’re being pushed up to the edge of the cliff here.”

See an announcement by U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), below or at this link.

There it is: as Democrats have warned, new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirms that each GOP proposal to cut Medicaid will lead to millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage. pic.twitter.com/0DETEQ8J9U
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) May 7, 2025

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