Dems stoke fears of Medicaid cuts as budget battle heats up, experts say

The White House is shutting down accusations from Democrats and anti-Trump “resistance” that nearly 14 million people will lose insurance coverage under Republican Medicaid reform proposals as part of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” – with Republicans calling foul on the data spin and saying Dems are using it as a scare tactic. 

The infighting comes as Democrats and Republicans are going head-to-head over Medicaid spending levels, which has emerged as a prominent wedge between the parties amid the release of new analysis suggesting millions of people would lose their health insurance in order to foot the bill for Trump’s tax cuts. 

While Democrats have merged data from two new reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to back up claims that nearly 14 million would lose coverage, the White House and Republicans are objecting, as not all the policy proposals evaluated were actually included in Republicans’ legislation, and far fewer people would actually face insurance loss. 

Instead, Republicans argue that their proposed reforms to implement work requirements, strengthen eligibility checks and crack down on Medicaid for illegal immigrants preserve the program for those who really need it. 

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“President Trump is protecting Medicaid for every eligible American who relies on it by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse within this program,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a Tuesday statement to Fox News Digital. “By taking commonsense measures to strengthen Medicaid, we will ultimately improve care for those who this program is intended to serve: pregnant women, the disabled, seniors, and low-income families.” 

“The President has repeatedly said that he will save Medicaid to ensure it remains a reliable and sustainable lifeline for generations to come,” Desai said. 

A series of calculations from the CBO have recently emerged evaluating multiple different Medicaid proposals – further pitting Republicans and Democrats against one another on Medicaid reform. 

The first new analysis, commissioned by Democrats and released Thursday, failed to examine the exact proposals Republicans are considering and instead, took a shot in the dark at what Republicans might introduce, according to experts. 

That’s because Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., requested the CBO evaluate various policies that Republicans could have suggested. However, most of the policies analyzed are not identical to the ones that Republicans have actually put forward, experts said. 

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“That was Democrats trying to guess what Republicans were going to do,” Ryan Long, a senior research fellow at the Paragon Health Institute, told Fox News Digital Monday. 

Michael Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the Washington-based libertarian-leaning Cato Institute think tank, voiced similar sentiments about the initial CBO report. 

“The first thing to know is that this is not a Republican proposal that CBO was examining,” Cannon told Fox News Digital Monday about the initial CBO analysis. “They’re similar to Republican proposals, but these were proposals, ideas that the Democrats asked CBO to examine for the purposes of criticizing those proposals, using them as a CBO score as a cudgel against Republicans.” 

While Democrats labeled the first scorekeeper’s report as proof that Republican policies would lead to “catastrophic” Medicaid cuts and force millions of people off their coverage, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said in a post on X that Democrats sought to “fear monger” Americans. 

Ultimately, the CBO report released Thursday evaluated five different initiatives that would rein in Medicaid spending, freeing up billions of dollars in spending but jeopardizing healthcare coverage for up to 8.6 million people. 

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Additional analysis from the CBO released Monday claimed that an additional 5.1 million Americans could lose their coverage if the measure fails to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that will expire in 2034, and includes a provision to fully implement the Marketplace Integrity Rule that seeks to crack down on eligibility verification. 

Although neither of these proposals is included in the Republican legislation, Democrats have added the numbers from these two CBO reports and have asserted that roughly 13.7 million people would go uninsured under Republican policies. 

Meanwhile, the latest CBO analysis released Tuesday examining Medicaid proposals included in the GOP measure found that adding work requirements, new eligibility checks and removing illegal immigrants from Medicaid would result in 10.3 million people losing coverage, and would leave 7.6 million people without insurance. 

CBO declined to comment when reached by Fox News Digital. 

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Additionally, Cannon pushed back against accusations that any of the proposals would actually cut Medicaid funding. While federal Medicaid spending is set to increase by 4.5% annually, the proposals CBO evaluated would simply curb that growth to at least 3% annually. 

But ultimately, Cannon said the report is a mechanism Democrats are using to ignite fears among Republicans as they seek a legislative victory of their own. 

“Democrats want to beat up Republicans, of course they do,” Cannon said. “They want to win elections, and they think if they can scare people, they can do it… they don’t want Republicans to get a political win, like tax cuts, and so this is their best weapon to stop tax cuts. They’re making the most of it, so that’s what’s going on with that CBO score.”

‘PEDALING INCORRECT REPORTS’ 

The tension between Republicans and Democrats over Medicaid funding stems from a larger battle over Trump’s budget package that is making its way through Congress. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is seeking to get the measure over the finish line in the House by Memorial Day. 

Meanwhile, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unveiled a portion of the measure Sunday that tackled Medicaid, as the panel follows through on requests to find $880 billion in spending cuts to foot the bill for other Trump priorities. 

Specifically, the committee’s proposal put forth policy initiatives, including a new 80-hour-per-month work requirement on certain able-bodied adults between the ages of 19 and 64 that receive Medicaid. 

The measure also puts limits on how much states spend on expanded Medicaid populations established through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which permitted states to increase their Medicaid coverage to those who make up 138% of the poverty level. 

Likewise, states that issue Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants are in jeopardy of reduced federal Medicaid reimbursement funding under the measure. That would require the state to pick up additional costs. 

Still, Democrats claimed that the effort would seize healthcare coverage from “millions of Americans.” 

“This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone,” Pallone said in a statement Sunday night. “The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking healthcare away from millions of Americans. Nowhere in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ – they’re cutting people’s healthcare and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.” 

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House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said Democrats are attempting to “scare” Americans. 

“Democrats are pedaling incorrect reports that include policies that aren’t even in the bill,” Guthrie told Fox News Digital Monday. 

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.