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Tag Archives: Medicaid
Snopes: Clarifying claim that DOGE, RFK Jr. found 8M people fraudulently on Medicaid
The numbers appeared tied to estimates on the number of people who may be cut from Medicaid under U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Snopes has a lengthy discussion of claims by F’Elon Musk (DOGE) and Robert “Brainworm” Kennedy Jr. that they found 8M people fraudently on Medicaid. Their conclusion:
These numbers don’t add up to 8 million …
Like almost everything else involving DOGE, the math doesn’t work out.
You can click the link below to read the article:
Talking Points Memo: GAO Makes Official What’s Been Obvious: Trump Admin Is Breaking Impoundment Control Act
The independent agency embedded within the legislative branch that is designed to review federal spending and make recommendations to Congress on cost savings and waste, as well as investigate policy implementation (the real one, not DOGE), has released a new finding that none of us will find surprising.
As part of its 39 different investigations into various actions the Trump administration has taken in the last four months that could qualify as Impoundment Control Act violations, the Government Accountability Office determined this afternoon that the Trump administration has, in fact, done just that.
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Big picture, the non-partisan congressional watchdog is expected to issue more rulings in coming months as it works its way through nearly 40 other similar investigations into whether the Trump administration has violated the 51-year-old law in other ways. The Trump White House has already called the GAO finding “wrong” and GAO opinions are, in general, considered nonbinding recommendations to Congress. Such a finding might matter more in an era where congressional Republicans were not already so willing to choke down all of Trump’s DOGE cuts.
MSNBC: It’s not just Medicaid: Why the Republicans’ bill would likely force Medicare cuts, too
The CBO said the GOP’s megabill would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.
As the fight over the Republicans’ so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act unfolded, much of the focus turned to Medicaid, and for good reason. Despite Donald Trump’s promise not to cut the health care program, the GOP legislation would cut roughly $700 billion from Medicaid in the coming years, and with just hours remaining before the bill reached the floor, party leaders added new and punitive Medicaid provisions to shore up support from far-right members.
But as important as the future of Medicaid is, the legislation’s impact on Medicare matters, too.
If people were to dig into the 1,000-page bill to look for the provisions related to Medicare cuts, they won’t find them. But there’s a difference between the literal text of the legislation and the practical effects of the legislation.
In fact, as The Washington Post reported, the Congressional Budget Office found that the Republicans’ megabill would add so many trillions of dollars to the national debt, “it could force nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare” — with some cuts taking effect as early as next year. As the Post noted, the higher deficits would force budget officials “to mandate across-the-board spending cuts over that window that would hit the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.”
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But that doesn’t change the bottom line: The CBO told the House that the Republicans’ reconciliation package would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.
MSNBC: There’s a reason Republicans want to hide what’s in their newly passed megabill
If that sounds like hyperbole, it’s not.
Early Wednesday, when most Americans were snuggled in their beds, Republicans in the House of Representatives were working hard to take away the health care of millions of Americans, blow a $3 trillion hole in the budget deficit and make the wealthiest people in America richer and the poorest Americans poorer.
If this sounds like hyperbole, it’s not. The GOP-controlled House Rules Committee convened at 1 a.m. Wednesday morning to discuss a bill that hasn’t been fully drafted and the provisions of which were still part of intense negotiations. Indeed, the real work on the legislation was happening behind closed doors as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., tried to cobble together enough votes to pass something, anything, so he could meet his self-imposed deadline for a floor vote by Memorial Day. Late Wednesday, GOP leaders released yet more significant changes to the bill, and on Thursday morning the full House passed the bill by a single vote.
What we do know about the legislation the GOP is calling the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is genuinely terrifying.
According to an analysis published Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, the numbers in the GOP’s draft legislation are brutal. The bill would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion — a rise that is spooking bond markets already worried about the president’s tariff increases. The bill would slash $267 billion in federal spending for SNAP, which more than 42 million low-income people rely on to put food on the table for their families. And it would cut nearly $700 billion from federal funding for Medicaid.
The CBO estimated Tuesday that the Medicaid cuts could cause roughly 8 million people to lose their health insurance coverage, and that number could rise to 15 million thanks to other provisions in the legislation. The amendments revealed Wednesday, writes Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, surely “would lead to more people losing health insurance.” But Republicans scrambled to vote Thursday before the CBO could update its totals.
All this is being done to extend the Trump tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit wealthy people. The impact of the GOP’s bill is extraordinary in both its cruelty and its extreme inequality. According to the CBO’s estimate, household resources for the poorest people would decrease by 4% over the next eight years, while the richest people’s household resources would increase by 4%.
Atlantic: The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History
House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.
House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.
That is not a side effect of the legislation but its central purpose. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215-214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.
Rolling Stone: ‘Intentionally Hiding’: GOP Tries to Sneak Through Medicaid Cuts in Dead of Night
Republicans scheduled a critical meeting of the House Rules Committee for 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The marathon hearing – in which lawmakers questioned the chairs and ranking members of various committees involved in the production of the reconciliation bill – lasted over eight hours. It did not escape notice that the late-night hearing took place during hours when most journalists, government officials, and interested members of the public would be at home and asleep.
“It’s just over 100 days you guys have gone from promising to lower costs to ripping away people’s health care. Of course you don’t want anybody to know what you’re doing here,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said around 1:30 a.m. “It’s because you know this bill betrays the people who voted for you.”
“You have the most ineffective Congress in the century, you passed almost no legislation into law, and this is how you want to roll out your big centerpiece legislation at 1:00 in the morning?” McGovern added. “This isn’t just incompetence. It’s much more nefarious than that. You are intentionally hiding what you are doing. What an insult to the people of this country, what disdain you guys must have for the people who voted for you.”
MSNBC: History’s warning for Republicans who back Trump’s massive budget bill
If Democrats can get their act together, they can make the GOP’s depredations a centerpiece of their 2026 campaign.
As Republicans in Congress struggle to settle on a megabill they can all agree on, they might want to familiarize themselves with the story of Marjorie Margolies. Her political career stands as a warning to GOP lawmakers, especially those thinking of risking their seats to save President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
Three decades ago, Margolies (then Margolies-Mezvinsky) briefly became the most famous first-term member of the House of Representatives. She was elected in 1992 to represent Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District — a swing district in Philadelphia’s suburbs — by just 1,373 votes.
The following summer, President Bill Clinton was struggling to push his first budget through the Democratic-controlled Congress. Though the budget raised taxes only on the wealthy, Margolies had promised during her campaign that she wouldn’t vote for any tax increases. In the run-up to the crucial vote, Margolies restated her opposition. But in a phone call with Clinton just before the vote, she told him that if her support was absolutely needed, she would stand with her party.
When it became clear that Margolies’ vote was, in fact, absolutely necessary, she walked down the aisle to cast a “yes” ballot. “One Democrat after another hugged her, patted her on the back and touched her as if she were Joan of Arc,” The New York Times reported at the time. “As she finally voted aye, her Democratic colleagues cheered as the Republicans jeered, ‘Goodbye Marjorie.’”
The GOP never let her constituents forget her critical vote, and she lost her re-election bid the next year. But Margolies wasn’t the only Democrat to lose her seat. When the 1994 midterms took place, Clinton’s approval was about where Donald Trump’s is today. He had gone through a bruising two years of legislative battles over his budget, a bill to ban the sale of assault weapons and a failed attempt at health care reform. And while the U.S. economy was growing, the 1990s boom that buoyed Clinton’s popularity was still a few years away.
The average voter was mildly disgruntled; the Republican base was enraged. Democrats ceded control of the House after 40 uninterrupted years in the majority. They lost 54 seats in the chamber and eight in the Senate, as well as 10 governorships. It was the most lopsided midterm defeat for a president’s party in modern U.S. history.
Less than six months until the mid-term elections!!!
The Hill: Senate Republicans want to break up House’s Trump bill into bite-size pieces
Senate Republicans say the House-drafted bill to enact President Trump’s legislative agenda has “problems” and are taking a second look at breaking it up into smaller pieces in hopes of getting the president’s less controversial priorities enacted into law before the fall.
Even if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) manages to squeak Trump’s agenda through the House, it faces major obstacles in the Senate, where moderate Republicans say they oppose proposed cuts to Medicaid and fiscal conservatives say it doesn’t go nearly far enough in cutting the deficit.
“There are still a lot of problems,” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal Senate GOP discussions on the budget reconciliation bill.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5304984-trump-agenda-stalled-senate-considering-split
Newsweek: Chip Roy fires new warning as Trump’s big bill moves forward: “scam”
Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) warned that President Donald Trump‘s vast tax and spending bill still “does not yet meet the moment” after it narrowly advanced out of a key committee during a rare Sunday night vote.
The House Budget Committee passed the reconciliation bill by 17-16 votes, but four Republican holdouts—including Roy—only voted “present.” This allowed the bill to move forward while they demonstrated their opposition to the package in its current form.
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But the Republican majority in the House is slight, and representatives have different political calculations to make, leading to divisions on issues like Medicaid spending and deficit-financed tax cuts that make passing the bill a tough task.
There’s still hope that this “hideously ugly bill” that taxes the poor to feed the rich can be blocked or fixed.
Chip Roy fires new warning as Trump’s big bill moves forward: “scam”
The Trump-dubbed “one big, beautiful bill” narrowly got through the House Budget Committee.
https://www.newsweek.com/chip-roy-trump-big-bill-warning-scam-2073956