Right-wing media figures have spent the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term urging congressional Republicans to drastically cut spending on Medicaid to offset the huge cost of President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts for the rich.
The conservative pundits pushing this line have floated several policy options for the Medicaid cuts, including implementing work requirements for recipients or changing funding for the insurance program for poor people into a block grant issued to states. Many conservative figures also baselessly blame undocumented immigrants for driving up Medicaid costs, even though they are generally prohibited from accessing the program.
On February 25, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a budget framework calling for $2 trillion in spending cuts and $4.8 trillion in tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. The resolution doesn’t directly call for cuts to Medicaid, and instead uses a rhetorical sleight-of-hand to disguise the rollbacks as part of an unspecified $880 billion reduction in spending. In his first Cabinet meeting, Trump claimed he wouldn’t “touch” Medicaid other than rooting out “fraud,” though there is not nearly enough improper spending in the health insurance program to cover Republicans’ proposed cuts.
Medicaid covers more than 72 million people in the United States, and the approaches advocated by right-wing pundits would put many of them at risk of losing their insurance. Imposing work requirements could result in 36 million people — across every state — losing their coverage. The unnecessary red tape is also a solution in search of a problem, as nearly two-thirds of recipients are already working full- or part-time, and most of the rest are either caring for family, have an illness or disability, or are in school.
The first Trump administration allowed states the option to force Medicaid recipients to meet onerous work requirements. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found, two states that added the requirements fared poorly. “In Arkansas, about 1 in 4 enrollees subject to the requirements — some 18,000 people — lost coverage in only seven months in 2018 before a federal court halted the program,” CBPP wrote. In Georgia, two-thirds of the program’s spending went to administrative costs rather than health care, according to CBPP.
Republican lawmakers have floated the idea of turning Medicaid funding into block grants to states before, which experts estimated would result in a 25% percent spending decrease over 10 years.
These dangers notwithstanding, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, and other right-wing media figures have used their platforms to undermine Medicaid and celebrate the House GOP’s austerity budget plan.