House Republicans released the first draft of their legislation cutting Medicaid to help pay for $5 trillion of tax cuts in what President Donald Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” at the center of his domestic policy agenda.
The legislation would impose new limits on Medicaid benefits to unemployed adults and require more frequent eligibility checks as part of a reform package that would save $715 billion on federal health spending over a decade, according to a preliminary analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
“When so many Americans who are truly in need rely on Medicaid for life-saving services, Washington can’t afford to undermine the program further by subsidizing capable adults who choose not to work,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed accompanying the bill release.
The legislation, which also includes changes to health insurance rules under the Affordable Care Act, would result in 8.6 million fewer Americans having health care coverage a decade from now, per the CBO analysis. Republican committee aides disputed the CBO analysis but did not provide a separate estimate of the bill’s impacts.