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- Sen. Mike Lee supports deeper Medicaid cuts to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.
- Proposed cuts could result in 8.6 million people losing coverage; $715 billion would be saved by 2034.
WASHINGTON — While Republican leaders move forward with proposals to significantly reform Medicaid, some lawmakers are breaking from the party to demand more changes.
As part of budget instructions, the House Energy and Commerce committee was tasked with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts to help pay for the $4.5 trillion in tax cut extensions Republicans hope to approve before the end of the year. Republicans on the committee have exceeded those numbers to find more than $900 billion in savings, a source familiar with the details told the Deseret News.
With those cuts in place, preliminary estimates predict at least 8.6 million people would lose Medicaid coverage over the next decade with program spending cuts reaching at least $715 billion by 2034.
But for some Republicans, those cuts don't go far enough.
"I sure hope House & Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan … because I'm not here to rack up an additional $20 trillion in debt over 10 years or to subsidize healthy, able-bodied adults, corrupt blue states, and monopoly hospital CEOs," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in a post on X.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, offered public support to Roy, arguing the bill does not go far enough to reduce the national deficit.
"Rep. Roy is correct: We can and should be doing more to both save American families from paying for the waste, fraud, and abuse in federal entitlement programs like Medicaid, and ensuring that those programs remain solvent for future generations of the people who actually qualify for them," Lee told the Deseret News in a statement.
Lee said his top two priorities would be to ensure "no federal benefits go to people brought here by Joe Biden's illegal border invasion" and to implement work requirements for able-bodied adults.
The initial framework would implement new work requirements for able-bodied adults to work 80 hours a month as well as prohibitions on coverage "for individuals whose citizenship, nationality, or immigration status has not been verified."
Meanwhile, other Republicans are hesitant to support the bill — but because of concerns the spending cuts go too far.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., for example, previously told the Deseret News he would not support any framework that cut Medicaid by more than $500 billion. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also rejected proposals to slash away at the welfare program, calling it "both morally wrong and politically suicidal."
"All of which means this: If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It's that simple," Hawley wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Monday. "And that pattern will replicate in states across the country."
The Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to formally mark up the proposal during a marathon hearing on Tuesday, which is expected to drag on for several hours.
