Pentagon and Immigration Spending in GOP Bill Could Instead Protect Medicaid Coverage

With the House GOP's Medicaid-slashing reconciliation bill now headed to the Republican-controlled Senate, a trio of groups on Thursday highlighted that the tens of billions the reconciliation legislation allocates for the Pentagon and the Trump administration's immigration crackdown efforts could instead be used to protect and expand health insurance access for millions.

House Republicans' reconciliation bill includes $163 billion for the Pentagon and for mass deportation and border-related expenses that U.S. President Donald Trump has requested be allocated in fiscal year 2026. Those dollars could instead go toward providing 31 million adults with Medicaid, or providing 71 million people with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, according to a report titled Trading Life for Death: What the Reconciliation Bill Puts at Stake in Your State.

The report is a joint publication from the progressive watchdog Public Citizen, the progressive policy research organization the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), and the National Priorities Project (NPP), which is a federal budget research organization and a project of IPS.

In a statement on Thursday, Lindsay Koshgarian, program director at NPP and one of the authors of the report, framed the reconciliation package as a "direct redistribution of resources from struggling Americans to the Pentagon and militarization."

The reconciliation bill, which passed 215-214 in the House of Representatives on Thursday, includes tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy that would add $3.8 trillion to the national debt, a roll back in clean energy tax credits, sweeping cuts to Medicaid and SNAP to the tune of nearly $1 trillion, and an increase in the maximum payment available through the child tax credit until 2028—though the bill is designed so that it would block an estimated 4.5 million children from accessing the credit, according to the Center for Migration Studies.

Under the legislation, an estimated 8.6 million people would lose Medicaid coverage over the next 10 years, according to a May 11 analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 11 million people would be at risk of losing at least some of their food assistance under the changes to SNAP.

Millions more could lose their healthcare due to Obamacare decisions/provisions.

Per the report, the militarized spending increases for 2026 would more than enough to fund Medicaid for the millions who are at risk of losing their health insurance under the bill, and the millions at risk of losing their SNAP benefits.

In addition to highlighting that the bill includes a huge cash injection for the U.S. Department of Defense, the report argues the Pentagon does not need more money. "The United States is already the world's largest military spender, allocating more taxpayer dollars to the Pentagon than the next nine countries combined," according to the report, which also notes that the department has never passed an audit.

The three groups also quantify the tradeoffs between defense spending and healthcare at a more granular level.

For example, the bill includes a $25 billion initial investment in Trump's "Golden Dome" project, a multilayered defense system that Trump has said will be capable of "intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space," according to CBS News.

In just one congressional district, Tennessee's 2nd District, taxpayer funds going toward the investment in the Golden Dome could instead be used to put 12,310 people on Medicaid, according to the report. In Texas' 21st District, taxpayers' funds redirected to support the Golden Dome could provide Medicaid to 13,589 people.

"If implemented, this budget would rip the rug out from under everyday Americans relying on Medicaid and SNAP to survive, just to further enrich Pentagon contractors," said Savannah Wooten, People Over Pentagon advocate at Public Citizen and report co-author, in a statement on Thursday. "Stealing money away from life-sustaining programs to fund war, weapons, and death should be an immediate nonstarter for every member of Congress."