GOP Budget: Medicaid and Children’s Healthcare in Peril
Repeat after me. Medicaid is the largest insurer of children in America.
As of 2024, about 36% of American kids relied on Medicaid for health insurance… 47% if you count kids on CHIP.
Medicaid is also incredibly popular! Recent polling suggests that there are 0 congressional districts where greater than 15% of voters support cutting the program. In a nation divided, that’s astoundingly unanimous.
So why the Hell did Republicans in the House Energy & Commerce Committee just vote to push forward a bill containing $880 million in Medicaid cuts?
The prepared conservative response would be “to eliminate wasteful spending”, but I’m calling major BS. Every claim of Medicaid fraud I’ve seen so far from GOP electeds has been patently false. Plus… the new GOP budget increases total spending by an estimated $4 Trillion. The irony is almost unbearable.
The real answer is sad, yet unsurprising if you’ve been paying attention.
This was plan all along, as detailed in Project 2025. Yeah, yeah, yeah Trump distanced himself from it on the campaign trail, but now half of its authors work for his administration — most notably Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author who has been confirmed to the Office of Management and Budget (the OMB, one of the most influential offices in the federal bureaucracy).
Kids First Congressman Greg Landsman (D-Cincinnati) was one of the first to take to social media after reviewing the bill, listing “7 ways they are cutting healthcare” and highlighting cuts to children’s healthcare via Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (also called CHIP).
Shortly after, disability rights advocates entered the E&C Committee’s chamber and chanted “no cuts to Medicaid”. Though the protest was nonviolent, initial reports by Emily Brooks with The Hill indicate that up to 25 people were arrested, but that story is ongoing.
And by the way… you know it wouldn’t be a GOP bill if they didn’t find some way to be a dick to trans people and women seeking reproductive care in the fine print. Yep, the bill includes restrictions on gender affirming care and cuts to Planned Parenthood. Don’t forget, 0 federal funds can be used for abortion care, so the GOP is proposing cuts for routine cancers screening, STI treatment, and other important primary care services.
As always, the time to call your representatives and ask that they vote NO on any budget that guts Medicaid is right now. Like NOW. And if your representative won’t support Medicaid… it’s time to run against them or support someone else who will.