Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! The Republicans are Coming for Medicaid AND Medicare

Congressional Budget Office Finds $500 Billion in Medicare Cuts

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Suppose you get your news from cable television. In that case, your options range from left-leaning media telling you their version of the truth to right-wing media promoting the administration despite what your eyes are telling you. One example is the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), which proposes to extend the 2017 tax cuts set to expire and provide additional tax cuts. The bill, still under development, includes cuts to Medicaid and is expected to raise the national debt by trillions of dollars. If only there were some credible neutral party to help sort things out and provide an honest estimate of the impact of legislation.

There is one source: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a federal agency within the legislative branch that provides budget and economic information to Congress. The CBO offers a bipartisan analysis to the House and Senate Budget Committees. It gives “scoring” on almost all proposed bills with a financial impact. They basically tell Congress, “If you do something, here’s what you can expect to happen.”

Democrats have been screaming to anyone that would listen that the One Big Beautiful Bill contained massive cuts to Medicaid and would remove healthcare benefits from millions of poor people. Republican responses have ranged from saying they are merely cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse” to others, including Donald Trump, saying there would be no cuts to Medicaid.

We’re not touching anything! — Donald Trump

The CBO released its scoring of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which reveals that the bill would reduce Medicaid spending by an estimated $625 billion and remove over 10% of beneficiaries over 10 years (7.6 million people). OBBB would also cut Medicare by $500 billion. Despite the combined spending cuts, the federal deficit is expected to rise, and the bill raised the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.

“The deficit will explode so badly it will trigger automatic cuts, including over half a trillion dollars from Medicare.” — CBO

Americans may have been expected to overlook Medicaid cuts, mainly affecting people with no or low income. That would be like stepping over homeless people sleeping in a doorway. The Medicare cuts affect retirees and older people who paid into the system for their entire work lives. In full disclosure, I’m a Medicare recipient and pay a monthly premium of $185. I pay co-pays of $35 for visits to my primary doctor and more for specialists.

During the discussions leading up to votes on the OBBB, Medicare cuts were not mentioned. Republicans are holding late-night votes in hopes nobody will notice. The House Rules Committee scheduled a 1 a.m. meeting on May 21st. The Rules Committee vote is normally the last before a vote of the full House. As of this writing, the vote has yet to be held, and the news of the Medicare cuts is just breaking.

There used to be three untouchable third rails: Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. It seems that two of those are now in play to provide tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy. Perhaps Americans will make enough noise to stop the OBBB, or maybe we will just suck it up like the tariffs. We will see.