NOTUS reports members of Trump’s circle are getting nervous about House Republicans’ determination to cut the federal health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans in their reconciliation bill. Cuts, they say, could eat away Trump’s base.
“The House Republicans who are obsessed with cutting Medicaid are in danger of unwittingly breaking up the coalition Trump created,” one Trumpworld source told NOTUS. “The Republican Party has lost a portion of its college-educated supporters and has increased greatly with voters without a college education who rely more on entitlements.”
“Leave it to House Republicans to screw up a two-car processional,” a second Trump operative told NOTUS. “Like, they just can’t get out of their own way, sometimes.”
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House Republicans are allegedly itching to pitch Medicaid cuts as a way to pay for Trump’s 2017 tax cuts in the reconciliation bill. But Trump never campaigned on cutting Medicaid, despite supporting the budget resolution now pushing heavy Medicaid cuts.
Congressional Republicans have already backed adding work requirements to Medicaid and targeting “waste, fraud and abuse,” but these proposals barely make a dent in the almost $900 billion the White House needs to save over 10 years to sustain Trump’s tax cuts. Now Republicans are pushing a proposal that slashes the federal government’s contribution to Medicaid, forcing states to pick up a larger portion of the cost,. Only there is no guarantee that red states like Mississippi and Alabama will easily step up to the plate.
“A lot of MAGAs on Medicaid,” NOTUS reports Trump ally Steve Bannon saying on his podcast earlier this year. “If you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. You can’t just take a meat axe to it.”
Vulnerable moderate Republicans led Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) sent a letter to GOP leadership reiterating their “strong support for this program that ensures our constituents have reliable healthcare. Balancing the federal budget must not come at the expense of those who depend on these benefits for their health and economic security.”
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“It probably puts a few seats they don’t want on the map, on the map,” another source told NOTUS.
Read the entire NOTUSs report here.
