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Moderate House Republicans Warn Mike Johnson Against Medicaid Cuts

WASHINGTON ― A group of Republicans on Wednesday warned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) they don’t like the safety net cuts outlined in a budget outline the House could vote on later this month.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and seven other moderate Republicans representing districts with sizable Hispanic populations warned in a letter to Johnson that they don’t want to “slash programs that support American communities across our nation.”

In order to move a budget through the House without any Democratic support, Johnson can lose only one Republican vote — so the Gonzales-led faction could easily block the budget’s path. The lawmakers did not say outright they would oppose Johnson’s budget, however.

The House Budget Committee approved the budget resolution last week, which calls for as much as $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over ten years, with potential reductions to federal food assistance and Pell grants as well. The safety net cuts would partly offset a $4.5 trillion tax cut extension.

“Nearly 30% of Medicaid enrollees are Hispanic Americans, and for many families across the country, Medicaid is their only access to health care,” the Republicans wrote. “Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open.”

President Donald Trump endorsed the House budget on Wednesday but also said in a Fox News interview this week that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid wouldn’t be touched. In the past, Trump has vowed not to cut the retirement benefits or health care coverage provided to seniors by Social Security and Medicare, but hasn’t said he’d spare Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans.

The White House said Wednesday evening that Trump favored “slashing the waste, fraud and abuse” within Medicaid, without specifying what would count as waste, fraud or abuse.

Johnson has said the budget plan doesn’t put Medicaid on the chopping block and that he only envisions cutting waste, fraud and abuse, while also suggesting he supports imposing work requirements that will bar many unemployed people from receiving benefits.

If the House adopts this resolution, that will mark only the beginning of a longer process in which Republicans will have to spell out how their various cuts would work. Johnson has to balance the demands of moderates against those of the right-wingers who want even steeper cuts to social programs.

“Medicaid and food stamps are massively expensive programs that produce terrible outcomes — produced by a government $36 trillion in debt… uh, yeah, they can be reformed,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in a social media post Wednesday evening.