Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had sharp words for a GOP budget resolution that seeks to fund trillions of dollars in tax cuts by almost certainly making major cuts to programs that lower-income Americans rely on, like Medicaid, and could be voted on in the House of Representatives as soon as Tuesday evening.
Medicaid, Sanders wrote on social media Monday, provides coverage for over 60% of people in nursing homes and millions of children. "Trump and his Republican friends want to enact massive cuts to the program. We won't let them," wrote Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats.
While the budget resolution doesn't explicitly call for cuts to Medicaid, the resolution directs the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid spending, to come up with $880 billion in cuts.
Sanders' post on social media was accompanied by a clip from an MSNBCinterview from last week, where he and host Ali Velshi discussed U.S. President Donald Trump's backtracking on his statement that he would not make cuts to Medicaid.
On February 18, Trump toldFox News that "Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched." Less than 24 hours later Trump endorsed the House budget blueprint on Truth Social, saying he liked that plan better than a separate Senate version.
"The House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!" Trump wrote.
That flip flop inspired an op-ed from James Downie, an editor for MSNBC, who wrote Monday that "that pirouette should worry not only the millions of Americans on Medicaid, but those drawing Medicare and even Social Security benefits as well."
"If Trump only needed 12 hours to go all-in on slashing Medicaid to fund giveaways to the wealthy, why should anyone expect other entitlements to be off the table?" Downie wrote.
Cutting the federal government's share of Medicaid spending could mean millions of Americans lose health coverage unless states step up and fill the gap, according to The New York Times.
"House Republicans hunting for ways to pay for President Trump's tax cuts have called for cutting the federal government's share of Medicaid spending, including a proposal that would effectively gut the Affordable Care Act's 2014 expansion of the program," the outlet reported Tuesday.
Meanwhile, steep cuts in the budget outline have made some GOP House members nervous. With a razor-thin majority in the House, Republicans can't afford more than a single defection if they want to pass the resolution—and a couple have already said they are against the measure.
