Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pushed forward legislation Wednesday that includes sweeping cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs, forming one of the most hotly debated components of President Trump’s expansive legislative agenda.
After more than 26 hours of deliberations and only two breaks for floor votes, the committee voted 30-24 along party lines. The bill now moves to the House Budget Committee, which is scheduled to meet Friday to merge it with related legislation from other panels. That package will also include the continuation of Trump-era tax cuts and new incentives for tipped and overtime wages.
The Energy and Commerce Committee had been assigned the task of identifying $880 billion in federal savings over the next ten years. Much of that reduction comes from proposed cuts to Medicaid.
The legislation mandates work requirements for childless adults aged 19 to 64, with limited exemptions. It would end the common state practice of taxing health care providers to fund Medicaid and secure additional federal matching funds. States that use Medicaid to cover individuals without legal status would face financial penalties. The bill would also lock in previous Trump administration efforts to shorten the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment period, among other major revisions.
According to a partial analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, these provisions would result in 10.3 million people losing access to Medicaid by 2034, and 7.6 million people becoming uninsured.
Democrats cited even larger coverage losses based on other CBO projections, while Republicans dismissed those figures as inaccurate or misleading.
Opponents of the legislation criticized it as a blatant trade-off: gutting public health support in order to finance tax breaks.
“This bill strips health care away from millions of Americans just to hand more tax breaks to billionaires and massive corporations. That’s not what voters sent us here to do,” said ranking member Frank Pallone Jr.