The #GOP’s New #Medicaid Denialism
Unable to defend their #healthcare #cuts on the merits, congressional #Republicans have pivoted to magical thinking.
Republicans in #Congress claim to have achieved something truly miraculous. Their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they argue, would cut nearly $800B from Medicaid spending over 10yrs without causing any Americans to lose #health care—or, at least, without making anyone who loses health care worse off.
#law #Trump
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/06/medicaid-cuts-tax-bill/683018/?gift=guxsrl_dAdXUP9zqbQPWxehuZomZV-OE0U-cMvwG0vA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, by imposing #Medicaid #WorkRequirements, the bill would eventually increase the #uninsured population by at least 8.6M. At first, #Republicans tried to defend this outcome on the grounds that it would affect only lazy people who refuse to work. This is clearly untrue, however.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
As voluminous research literature shows, #WorkRequirements achieve savings by implementing burdensome paperwork obligations that mostly take #Medicaid from eligible beneficiaries, not 25-yr-old guys who prefer playing video games to getting a job.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
Perhaps for that reason, some #Republicans in Washington are now making even more audacious claims. On CNN over the weekend, #OMB Dir #RussVought insisted that “no one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.” Likewise, #JoniErnst, a #Republican senator from Iowa, recently told voters at a town hall, “Everyone says that #Medicaid is being cut, people are going to see their benefits cut; that’s not true.” After one attendee shouted, “People will die,” Ernst replied, “We all are going to die.”
#JoniErnst later doubled down on her
comment on social media, attempting to equate concern that #Medicaid cuts could harm people with believing in the tooth fairy.
Ofcls such as #RussVought & Ernst have not provided a detailed explanation of their blithe assurances. But there is one center of conservative thought that has attempted to defend these claims: the WSJ editorial page.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
Last week, the WSJ editorial page published an editorial headlined “The Medicaid Scare Campaign.” The thesis is that the #Medicaid cuts would “improve healthcare by expanding private insurance options, which provide better access & health outcomes than Medicaid.”
This would be, as they say, huge if true: The #GOP has found a way to give #LowIncome Americans better #healthcare while saving hundreds of billions in taxpayer money.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
The timing is even more remarkable, given that this wondrous solution has come along at precisely the moment when congressional #Republicans are desperate for budget savings to partially offset the costs of a regressive & fiscally irresponsible tax cut.
Sadly [if unsurprisingly], a close reading of WSJ’s editorial reveals that no such miracle is in the offing.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
Instead, the argument relies on a series of misunderstandings [#disinformation] & non sequiturs to obscure the obvious fact that cutting #Medicaid would make #poor people sicker & more likely to die.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
@Nonilex There is an answer for reducing massive health care costs, it's simple and proven effective by pretty much every country in the world that isn't named the United States: put everyone on publicly funded health care and pay for it through your taxes. Canada has it, for example, and we pay about half what Americans do for health care.
