Moving past repealing Obamacare, Republicans still plan major health care cuts

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans may no longer be pushing to wholly repeal Obamacare, but big cuts to the nation’s health system are still on the table.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans may no longer be pushing to wholly repeal Obamacare, but big cuts to the nation’s health system are still on the table. As GOP leaders in the House and Senate scramble to pull together a massive legislative package with Trump’s pricey priorities, they are looking for ways to offset the costs. One of their prime targets is Medicaid, which provides health coverage to more than 72 million low-income Americans. The Senate Budget Committee kicked off the process on Friday, releasing its budget blueprint that calls for the Senate Finance Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee, both of which have jurisdiction over Medicaid, to find at least $1 billion in savings, among other provisions. “The way this is written means only one thing: Republicans have their knives out for Americans’ health care,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. “It’s been clear from the start that congressional Republicans plan to gut health care for working families to fund their ideological priorities.” The House is working on its own version of what could be an even larger reconciliation package, which can be passed with a simple majority of votes in the Senate. Republicans have long sought to rein in Medicaid, which they view as rife with fraud and abuse. Their reform efforts in the first Trump administration largely failed, but they have renewed energy now that they again control the White House and both sides of Capitol Hill, albeit with a super-slim margin in the House.