‘Profoundly wary’: Insiders say Trump ‘definitely not convinced’ on Mike Johnson’s cuts
President Donald Trump is “profoundly wary” of the Medicaid cuts being debated under House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Politico reported on Wednesday.
The cuts are part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” combining tax cuts with border security and energy changes. GOP lawmakers have repeatedly denied they would cut Medicaid as part of the necessary $800 billion health cost savings they set in their budget framework, but left room for themselves to institute limits on the growth or federal cost sharing for the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion — which could still end in millions of people thrown off their coverage.
“While Trump has agreed to target waste, fraud and abuse, he remains profoundly wary about pursuing anything that might be construed as ‘cuts’ to a program he has vowed over and over again to protect, according to six White House officials and top allies of the president,” said the report. “Having experienced the political backlash that followed his failed 2017 effort to undo other parts of the Affordable Care Act, he has told associates in multiple recent meetings he’s uncomfortable with some of the ideas being bandied around on the Hill.”
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House Republicans plan to present Trump with a list of options on how to reform Medicaid that they hope he will find acceptable.
“Trump is definitely not convinced on reductions in Medicaid spending,” one adviser told Politico. “His own instincts are that politically it’s not good, and Trump’s political instincts are pretty good.”
During the 2017 debate over ACA repeal, Republicans on multiple occasions introduced plans to repeal or phase down Medicaid expansion altogether, which could have thrown tens of millions of people off the program. The resultant fury from voters and division among the GOP resulted in these plans failing to pass, and contributed to the grassroots anger that saw Republicans lose their House majority the next year.