House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) went after Republicans on Thursday over their designs for Medicaid, saying GOP leaders are deceiving Americans by claiming that no patients will lose health benefits under their plan.
“Republicans are lying to the American people about Medicaid,” Jeffries said during a press briefing in the Capitol.
Medicaid has emerged as perhaps the most contentious piece of the House Republicans’ massive budget blueprint for moving President Trump’s domestic agenda during his first year back in office. Under the GOP resolution, the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, has been tasked with finding at least $880 billion in cuts to programs under its purview to help offset the cost of trillions of dollars in Republican tax cuts.
Behind Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), GOP leaders maintain they can reach the $880 billion mark by weeding out waste, fraud and abuse under Medicaid, while also applying new work requirements on some adult beneficiaries.
“Everybody is committed to preserving [Medicaid] benefits for those who desperately need it and deserve it and qualify for it,” Johnson told reporters this week. “What we’re talking about is rooting out the fraud, waste and abuse.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) was even more adamant, waving a copy of the Republicans’ budget resolution and challenging Democrats to find evidence of Medicaid cuts, which are not mentioned in the document.
“Instead of just sitting back and licking their wounds that they’re completely out of touch with the American people, their only choice is to resort to lying about what’s in this vote,” Scalise said.
“There is no Medicaid in this bill. There are no Medicaid cuts in this bill.”
Democrats have rejected that argument out of hand. While acknowledging the absence of a specific reference to Medicaid in the 45-page budget bill, they argue that the Energy and Commerce Committee doesn’t oversee enough spending on other programs to find $880 billion without deep cuts to Medicaid.
“If Energy and Commerce Committee said we don’t want to cut Medicaid, instead we will cut literally everything else we possibly can 100 percent, that only gets you about halfway to the $880 billion,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pa.), senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said earlier in the week.
“So, by definition, they have to, as a minimum, cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid.”
That message is now at the heart of the Democrats’ counter-messaging strategy as they fight to block Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” strategy from becoming law. As the minority party in both chambers, Democrats are powerless to sink the legislation on their own. But they’re hoping to stir up enough public outrage over the spending cuts that vulnerable Republicans in purple districts will vote against them.
Jeffries is leading that messaging charge.
“Everybody knows, who has had any connection to the congressional budget, that if you are directing the Energy and Commerce Committee to find up to $880 billion, if not more, in spending cuts, that means Medicaid,” he said Thursday. “That will hurt children, hurt families, hurt everyday Americans with disabilities and hurt seniors.
“I can’t say it any other way: Republicans are lying,” he added. “Prove me wrong.”
