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medicare
'Call This What It Is—Theft': Republicans Approve Largest Medicaid, SNAP Cuts in US History
"The people stealing from Americans are not folks with tattoos and hoodies—it's people wearing suits and ties and congressional pins, sitting in this Capitol right now," said Rep. Maxwell Frost.
May 22, 2025
House Republicans on Thursday morning passed their sprawling budget reconciliation package after making last-minute changes to the legislation to mollify far-right hardliners.
The final count was 215-214, with every Democrat voting no and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)—chairman of the House Freedom Caucus—voting present. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, opposed the bill.
Earlier Thursday, the House voted to begin floor debate on the legislation after the GOP-controlled rules panel approved a slew of amendments to the bill, including a change that would move up the start date of draconian Medicaid work requirements to December 31, 2026—resulting in even bigger cuts to the program and more people losing coverage. Under an earlier version of the legislation, the work requirements would have taken effect at the start of 2029.
The updated bill would also "give states a financial incentive not to expand" Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act "to people with higher incomes than traditional enrollees, though still near the poverty line," Politicoreported.
If enacted, the House GOP's legislation would slash roughly $1 trillion combined from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), potentially stripping health coverage and food aid from tens of millions of low-income Americans to help fund trillions of dollars in tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest.
The bill, which runs over 1,100 pages, would also trigger cuts to Medicare, slash clean energy tax credits, and hand the U.S. military an additional $150 billion.
"Republicans just voted for the largest cuts to healthcare in American history—cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act," said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. "At least 13.7 million will now lose their healthcare as a result. And why? To pay for tax cuts for billionaires and special interests. This is a betrayal of the middle class."
I’ve literally never seen anything like this before. There’s no legislation in history that does so much, so fast, w/ so many last-minute changes, with so little analysis of the bill. Of course that’s the point. They’re going at warp speed to avoid analysis because they know it’s wildly unpopular.
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— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 11:40 PM
A Congressional Budget Office analysis released earlier this week showed that U.S. households in the bottom 10% of the income distribution would be worse off if the House Republican bill became law, while the top 10% would end up wealthier.
"Let's call this what it is—theft," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Rules Committee. "Stealing from those with the least to give to those with the most. It's not just bad policy, it's a betrayal of the American people."
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said in floor remarks just after midnight Thursday that "at least here tonight, the people stealing from Americans are not folks with tattoos and hoodies—it's people wearing suits and ties and congressional pins, sitting in this Capitol right now."
"Not in some random alley wrapped in darkness," Frost added as Republican lawmakers booed, "but in the United States Congress wrapped in the flag. It is disgusting, and we will never forget this."
Frost: Tonight the people stealing are not folks with tattoos and hoodies but people wearing suits and ties and congressional pins sitting in the capitol now, not in some alley wrapped in darkness but in the US congress wrapped in the flag. It is disgusting and we will never… pic.twitter.com/7BpiNS0Ezs
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 22, 2025
One GOP lawmaker, Massie of Kentucky, blasted his party for advancing the legislation while most Americans were asleep.
"If something is beautiful, you don't do it after midnight," said Massie, alluding to the official title of the legislation—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Republican lawmakers teed up the final House vote after days of marathon hearings, jockeying behind closed doors, and private meetings with President Donald Trump, who pressured far-right Republicans to drop their objections and fall in line.
The legislation still must clear the Republican-controlled Senate, which is expected to make significant changes. The House would then have to pass the bill again.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said in a statement following Thursday's vote that "Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' is a betrayal of our families and a $7 trillion handout to billionaires."
"So many families in our communities are already struggling to put food on the table and pay for their healthcare. For the over 324,000 children, seniors, and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid in our district, it is the difference between life and death," said Tlaib. "This budget makes $880 billion in cuts that will decimate Medicaid, nearly $300 billion in cuts to food assistance, but increases the Pentagon war machine by $150 billion."
"It's tax cuts for billionaires, and healthcare cuts for our families," she added. "It will take food out of the mouths of hungry kids. Nearly 14 million Americans will lose their healthcare, and thousands of people will needlessly die. We will not stop fighting to block this budget from being signed into law."
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We've Endured a Half-Century of Kleptocrats' Plunder of People's Wealth and Health
Neoliberalism has spurred 45 years of financialization, as Wall St. pillages-for-profit every sector, from healthcare to housing.
May 21, 2025
The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration prioritized a standard for economic and democratic empowerment of the people. FDR's New Deal advanced the common good and an economy for the people. The 1935 Social Security Act became the boilerplate for universal healthcare.
The post-WWII "Golden Age" of capitalism boosted economic growth, people's prosperity, and middle class expansion, lasting until 1975—subsequently displaced by global neoliberal capitalism.
Principle Political Dichotomy: Corporatists vs. Working People
Since the 1970s white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and aspiring oligarchs have converged under the Republican Party umbrella to seek deconstruction of democracy toward harnessing wealth and political power, while promoting supremacistentitlement—the presumed right to criminalize and hold hostage other people's lives based on gender, ethnicity, religion, and class wealth.
Nixon Supreme Court appointee Lewis Powell's 1971 Memorandum, termed a "capitalist coup," further galvanized corporate money toward rewrite of law, policy, and judicial precedent to consolidate corporate political power.
Since Reagan, continual huge tax cuts for wealthy corporatists have spiked national deficits, paid for with deficit-cutting on the backs of working people by cutting public and social programs.
Kleptocracy, also known as "socioeconomic thievery," describes the half-century robbery of the American people by corrupt leaders who expropriate wealth of the governed for their own gain. Contemporary Gilded Age Robber Barons continue to expropriate people's wealth. A RAND Corporation Report reveals that from 1975-2023 the top 1% robbed $79 trillion from the bottom 90%. Had earnings remained equitably distributed at pre-1975 levels, the average worker in the bottom 90th percentile would earn $32,000 more annually.
Even as the neoliberal "greed is good" ethic prioritized enhancement of shareholder profits, Reagan administration neoliberalism supercharged wealth transfer upward, crushing unions and wages, gutting antitrust law, deregulating banks and industries, enabling predatory private equity practices, and legalizing stock buybacks that continue to multiply billionaires' wealth.
Neoliberalism has spurred 45 years of financialization, as Wall St. pillages-for-profit every sector, from healthcare to housing. Kleptocrats leverage rivers of dark money to capture media and dominate lobbyist-controlled legislatures and elections, flooding the 2024 election with nearly $2 billion.
Commodification of Health for Profit Betrays the Original Intent of Medicare
The Social Transformation of American Medicine, by sociologist Dr. Paul Starr is a Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicle of corporate takeover of U.S. healthcare. Starr describes former President Richard Nixon as the first mainstream political leader to "take deliberate steps to change American healthcare from its longstanding not-for-profit business principles into a for-profit model to be driven by the insurance industry."
A 1971 video exchange between President Nixon and his aide John Ehrlichman celebrated the Kaiser CEO's prioritization of profit over healthcare. Enthused Ehrlichman, "...All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make."
Ostensibly intended to cut costs and improve healthcare access, Nixon's 1973 HMO Act advanced the concept of for-profit "managed care" health models. Each manifestation of managed care, including Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare Advantage, have proved increasingly profitable for Wall St. and the health industrial complex.
With passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, former President George W. Bush spearheaded privatized, for-profit Medicare Advantage insurance, purportedly written to "compete" with Original Medicare to save costs and improve healthcare access. Failing to do either, Medicare Advantage betrays the original intent of Medicare—to universalize coverage and rein in health costs with transparent pricing. Medicare Advantage plans often lack data and compliance information, while payment rates are manipulated based on a complex "risk modeling" process.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research reports: Even as Medicare Advantage insurers' profits are inflated, quality of patient care is reduced.
The United States remains an outlier—the only developed nation lacking universal healthcare, the only nation that places profiteering middlemen between patients and their doctors.
Since Reagan, continual huge tax cuts for wealthy corporatists have spiked national deficits, paid for with deficit-cutting on the backs of working people by cutting public and social programs. The 2025 Republican reconciliation bill promotes enormous tax cuts for the wealthy, and huge cuts to Medicaid and SNAP programs.
Were House Republicans serious about cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse," instead of cutting Medicaid coverage for 8.7 million people, they would eliminate Medicare Advantage scams that bleed $140 billion in annual overpayments from the Medicare Trust Fund—invested in as a lifetime earned benefit by every U.S. worker. Fraudulent "upcoding" exaggerates patient health conditions, costing $23 billion in 2023 overpayments. Some Medicare Advantage plans employ AI or a computer algorithm to instantly deny payments—reportedly used by Cigna to deny over 300,000 requests for payments in 2022.
Rigged to maximize government overpayments to pad shareholder and CEO profits—ultimately to privatize Original Medicare—Medicare Advantage overpayments are funded by taxpayers and Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare enrollees, who pay, among other costs, increasing Medicare Part B premiums annually—totaling $13 billion higher premiums in 2024.
A physician-authored report advises: "The time has come to declare Medicare Advantage a failed experiment and abolish it." Taxpayer overpayments to Medicare Advantage should instead go to boost an economy and healthcare for the people by eliminating profit-maximizing insurance middlemen. At least 22 studies report annual $600 billion Medicare for All administrative savings, enough to extend comprehensive health coverage to all ages.
A 2018 economic analysis by UMass Amherst Economists concluded that Medicare for All would significantly improve healthcare outcomes, and reduce healthcare spending by nearly 10%—from approximately $3.24 trillion to approximately $2.93 trillion. Additional projected annual prescription drug savings total $200-$300 billion.
Washington Complicity in Half-Century Privatization of Medicare
Further boosting privatization of Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) "innovative payment" experiments, modeled on "Managed Care" Accountable Care Organizations, were written into the Affordable Care Act. The Congressional Budget Office reported in 2023 that CMS experiments with "value-based" ACO payments failed to control costs, improve quality, or increase equity, costing Medicare $5.4 billion more than it saved during its first decade.
Medicare for All Would Vitalize an Economy for the People
The United States remains an outlier—the only developed nation lacking universal healthcare, the only nation that places profiteering middlemen between patients and their doctors. U.S. healthcare spending since 1980 outpaces other nations, and demonstrates "by far the worst overall health performance."
Only Single-Risk-Pool Medicare for All can leverage cost-savings of global health budgets to achieve financially sustainable, universal, comprehensive healthcare, while greatly reducing the 30% administrative costs of thousands of fragmented Medicare Advantage plans. The newly introduced Medicare for All Act of 2025 would eliminates out-of-pocket costs—premiums, copays, and deductibles—and unnecessary supplemental plans—Medicare Parts A, B, C, D, and Medigap.
For the first time in almost a century prioritization of universal health coverage would eliminate profiteering middlemen, boosting an economy that serves working people—not the ballooning billionaire kleptocracy.
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'They're Not Just Cutting Medicaid': GOP Bill Would Trigger Over $500 Billion in Medicare Cuts
"This is what Republicans do—pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires by going after programs families rely on the most: Medicaid, food assistance, and now Medicare."
May 21, 2025
The sprawling reconciliation package that House Republicans are rushing through committee would trigger over $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released late Tuesday.
The CBO analysis, requested by Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), came just hours before Republicans convened a dead-of-night House Rules Committee hearing on the budget legislation as they scramble to meet their Memorial Day deadline.
If enacted, the Republican bill would add trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade by delivering another round of tax cuts skewed to the rich, partially offset by huge cuts to Medicaid and other programs.
According to the CBO, the bill's addition to the deficit would trigger a process known as sequestration under the Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go (PAYGO) Act of 2010, a law long reviled by progressives that requires spending cuts equal to legislation's average deficit impact.
Unless lawmakers offset the deficit impact of the Republican bill or agree to waive the PAYGO requirements—which the GOP measure does not do—the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) "would be required to issue a sequestration order not more than 14 days after the end of the current session of Congress (excluding weekends and holidays) to reduce spending by $230 billion in fiscal year 2026," the CBO said.
"The deficit will explode so badly it will trigger automatic cuts, including over half a trillion dollars from Medicare."
Under PAYGO, automatic Medicare cuts are capped at 4%. The CBO estimates that the Republican legislation would trigger roughly $45 billion in Medicare cuts in 2026 and a total of $490 billion in cuts to the program between 2027 and 2034.
"This Republican budget bill is one of the most expensive—and dangerous—bills Congress has seen in decades," said Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. "The nonpartisan CBO makes it clear: The deficit will explode so badly it will trigger automatic cuts, including over half a trillion dollars from Medicare."
"This is what Republicans do—pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires by going after programs families rely on the most: Medicaid, food assistance, and now Medicare," Boyle added. "It's reckless, dishonest, and deeply harmful to the middle class."
Boyle highlighted the CBO's findings during his testimony at the House Rules Committee hearing, which began in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
"This is really the breaking news," Boyle said. "Over the last several months, there's been no discussion of Medicare at all. There has been of Medicaid, but not of Medicare."
"Because of the size of the deficits, because of the PAYGO or Pay-As-You-Go Act, that would trigger sequestration of Medicare, and it would total over $500 billion," Boyle continued. "The official figure that CBO confirms is $535 billion in cuts to Medicare."
Boyle: "This is really the breaking news ... because of the size of the deficits, because of the paygo act, that would trigger sequestration of Medicare, and it would total over $500 billion. The official figure that CBO confirms is $535 billion in cuts to Medicare." pic.twitter.com/29mGQj0mgi
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21, 2025
Boyle and other Democrats said the looming Medicare cuts amount to a betrayal of President Donald Trump's vow to shield the program—a promise that was included in the GOP's 2024 election platform.
"They're not just cutting Medicaid," said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), referring to the reconciliation bill's roughly $600 billion in proposed cuts to the healthcare program for low-income Americans. "They're cutting Medicare too."
House Budget Committee Democrats wrote on social media that "Trump promised to protect Medicare."
"He lied," they added.
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