With President Donald Trump’s “big and beautiful bill” heading to the Senate, Republicans are working to sell to voters to dig deep into Medicaid and other social safety net programs to get tax breaks for super-rich. The process involves many lies that boldly face voters.
The Republican current settlement bill will withdraw about 15 million Americans from their healthcare scope between 2034 and 2034. The expected coverage will be primarily subject to increased requirements for Medicaid recipients and changes in market policies for the Affordable Care Act and changes in tax benefits for the ACA program to purchase tax benefits.
Last month, Trump told reporters that he and the Republicans “have not cut anything meaningful. The only thing we cut is waste, fraud and abuse. Use Medicaid, waste, fraud and abuse. There is huge waste, fraud and abuse.”
Russell, director of the Trump Office of Management and Budget, claimed “no one will lose coverage due to this bill,” and accused the rebound of the “Astroturfurferferf” legislation.
Vought added: "The bill will utilize and protect programs, social safety nets."
In fact, the bill reduces Medicaid spending by at least $600 billion over the next 10 years. What Republicans are talking about is the measures to curb the program’s “waste, fraud and abuse”, which is largely an administrative barrier to reduce potential recipients in paperwork and potential recipients of the traditional Chinese tape festival to complicate the program’s enrollment rate.
Vought's statement to CNN represents the latest strategy for Republicans to intensify hostility to voters with unpopular plans. When Republican members marketed legislative programs to voters, their unified message was that legislation protected Medicaid in some way and that any American who lost health care coverage should not get it, even if they would just voluntarily give up.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FLA.) accused Democrats of using “fear strategies – not the truth – when talking to the American public.”
"Chuck Schumer claims Republicans want to remove Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but the reality is that we are working to protect these programs," she wrote on X.
Rep. Mike Lawler (RN.Y.) told New York Post Last month, the bill "works to protect critical services like Medicaid" while eliminating those who "play the game."
Lawler wrote in another tweet that the “reconciliation program” “strengthen Medicaid for the elderly, single parents and I/DD communities by eliminating coverage of “illegal immigrants” (who have already failed to meet most Medicaid programs), eliminating “scammers of fraud” without adult “scammers” and not relying on jobs.
Republicans like Lawler avoid admitting that the vast majority of healthy adults are already on Medicaid Do Work. More than 60% of recipients work full-time or part-time, and the rest largely does not work because they are disabled, sick, primary caregivers or students.
Including numerous Republicans, including Zach Nunn (R-iowa), Tom Kean Jr. (RN.J.), Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) and Rob Wittman (R-Va.), all use some versions of the “Protect Medicaid” in the public statement defending legislation.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) wrote on X that Republicans “protect Medicaid for those who need it,” adding: “The job requirements for physically capable adults help bring 4.8 million people back to the workforce and in insurance provided by employers.”
This is a peculiar claim that 4.8 million people will be forced to withdraw from the program, according to estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC News on Sunday See the media Concerns about individuals losing coverage are exaggerated. "It is a minor implementation of this policy, which follows common sense, for those who complain about these people losing coverage due to their inability to perform paperwork."
"Unless they choose to do this, there are 4.8 million people who don't lose Medicaid," Johnson added, insisting that "the American people didn't buy" the news about the Democratic Party surrounding the bill.
But even as House Republicans recommend them to increasingly angry voters, some of their colleagues in the Senate have sabotaged them. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called the legislation’s attack on Medicaid “political suicide”, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told CBS News on Sunday that cuts were “bad strategies” to deal with Republican concerns about state debt. (Deficit will increase, not decrease, due to the results of legislation.)
But perhaps the clearest acknowledgement that the legislation comes from a senator who doesn’t even deny that the bill could have dire consequences for Medicaid recipients. Even at a town hall in her hometown of Iowa, a attendee yelled “people will die” as Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) defended the “big and beautiful” Bill.
Ernst just paused and told the audience, "Well, we're all going to die." If Republicans go, many people will be much faster than they hoped.