House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) today accused his GOP congressional colleagues of blatantly lying to Americans about the impact of the latest budget action, especially as it concerns Medicaid.
“Republicans are lying to the American people about Medicaid.” Expressing frustration, Jeffries followed that accusation with: “I don’t know how else to say it.”
.@RepJeffries: "Republicans are lying to the American people about Medicaid…I can't say it any other way. Republicans are lying. Prove me wrong." pic.twitter.com/hqCi15r210
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 27, 2025
Jeffries asserted that the cuts, though not owned by GOP legislators, are hiding in plain sight: Though the budget resolution the Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) moved through the House doesn’t mention Medicaid by name, it authorizes the body that controls Medicaid — the House Committee on Energy and Commerce — to pursue $880 billion in cuts to the program.
Jeffries joins every House Democrat in objecting to the resolution — it passed 217-215 — and with them stand other irate lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who railed against the proposed Medicaid cuts as a “disaster for all Americans.”
[West Virginia is represented in the House by two Republicans — Carol Miller (Since 2019) and Riley Moore (since 2025). The sole Republican to vote nay on the budget resolution was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — though Massie, a deficit hawk, did not give proposed cuts to Medicaid as a reason for his dissent.]
Medicaid provides 40% of the funding for community health centers.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 25, 2025
Medicaid supports 2 out of 3 people in nursing homes.
Medicaid provides health care to 41 million children.
Trump and his Republican friends want to enact massive cuts to the program.
We won't let them. pic.twitter.com/xsWwxasiwB
Sanders pointed out that middle class Americans mistakenly believe that Medicaid cuts will only affect “poor people” and so they aren’t incensed by what will be taken away.
But beyond offering low-cost healthcare for lower earners, Sanders says, Medicaid plays an enormous role in caring for elderly Americans (two in three nursing home residents rely on it) and in caring for America’s children — especially in poorer states.
Noble Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman points out that nowhere are children more at risk from the proposed “savage” Medicaid cuts than in West Virginia, a state that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump — and where Medicaid provides health insurance for an astonishing 45% of children, the highest figure in the country. Doubling down on his idea that the cuts are savage, Krugman’s article addressing the Republican authorization is titled Cruel and Unusual.
(The poorest state in the nation by many metrics, West Virginia also pays less than any other state in the federal taxes that fund Medicaid.)
Krugman writes of what he characterizes as a perception among conservatives — especially MAGA conservatives — that they can “safely target [Medicaid] for cuts, because it’s mainly a program for inner city people of color. But that was never as true as people imagined and is definitely not true now. Again, consider West Virginia. It’s one of America’s most rural states and overwhelmingly — 90 percent — white. Yet as we’ve seen, it’s deeply dependent on Medicaid.”
.jpg){kind=link}