Last week, the president indicated that he doesn’t want to touch Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security in a budget bill.
A top Republican House lawmaker said President Donald Trump has shown a willingness to add work requirements for individuals receiving Medicaid as GOP lawmakers attempt to hash out a deal on spending cuts in a budget bill.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said that a minimum work requirement for adult recipients of Medicaid, which provides health care coverage for millions of low-income individuals, is being considered. Trump has indicated that he may support such a measure, Smith said.
“The president has been very clear: he does not want to cut benefits for individuals on Medicaid and Medicare. He wants to create efficiencies and reforms. He shows an openness to work requirements,” Smith said.
Medicaid is on the list of programs that House Republicans who advocate deep spending cuts are eyeing as they seek a way to reduce federal spending by as much as $2 trillion over the next decade. The cuts would help cover the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts in a proposed bill.
Most adults on Medicaid work full- or part-time, and most who do not are full-time caregivers or disabled, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Trump has said that Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people aged 65 and older, will not be touched in the GOP budget bill. But the president said that illegal immigrants who may be using the program might be targeted.
“There are a lot of illegal aliens that are getting Medicaid that shouldn’t be getting it. And nobody objects to taking people off Medicaid that aren’t allowed to be there,” Trump said in a NewsNation interview. “But we are doing absolutely nothing to hurt Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. Nothing at all.”
In the recent interview, Trump did not comment on whether he’d want to add work requirements to Medicaid.
On May 1, about 20 House Republicans signed a letter circulated by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) calling for deep cuts and structural reform to Medicaid and warning that failing to do so would result in “massive tax increases and benefit cuts in the future.”
The GOP lawmakers also said Medicaid is embroiled in a “crisis” because they argued it was created only as a “safety net for qualifying low-income children, pregnant women, seniors, and individuals with disabilities.” But it has been “distorted by policies” that put more emphasis on “federal payment maximization over care,” according to their letter.
However, some Republicans have indicated they won’t support cuts to Medicaid. A letter signed by another group of Republican House members, dated April 14, asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to hold off on cuts to the program.
“We would like to reiterate our strong support for this [Medicaid] program that ensures our constituents have reliable healthcare,” they wrote. “Balancing the federal budget must not come at the expense of those who depend on these benefits for their health and economic security.”
“Those are the cuts that don’t impact quality of care nor hurt hospitals. A bunch of us will have to be convinced that any other cuts won’t hurt patients or hospitals,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), one of those who signed the letter, told Axios last month.
The Epoch Times contacted the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Reuters contributed to this report.