Cutting Medicaid

CUTTING MEDICAID

The Trump administration is desperate to find budget cuts to pay for tax cuts that would mainly benefit the rich. One possibility would be to go after the military budget, now nearing $900 billion per year, but that is taboo to both parties. Trump has taken Medicare and Social Security off the table. So many Trump supporters are arguing for big cuts to Medicaid, a health insurance program designed to serve the work-ing and non-working poor that costs the federal government $682 billion a year.

Medicaid, which is in part funded by the federal government and in part by the states, now insures 72 million Americans. It pays for two-fifths of births and three-fifths of nursing home residents in the US. In 2023, of adults (aged 19-64) on Medicaid, 44% worked full time, 20% part time, 12% were caregivers, and 10% were ill/disabled.

Cutting medical care for the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich is an atrocious idea and must be opposed. 

Sources: The New York Times, 3/7, 2/28, and 2/25/ 2025 and The Economist,3/1/25