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President Trump has sought to assuage some lawmakers’ concerns over the bill’s price tag and cuts to Medicaid with inaccurate claims.
As the Senate considers a domestic policy bill to enact the White House’s agenda, President Trump and his allies have sought to assuage some lawmakers’ concerns over its price tag and cuts to Medicaid with inaccurate claims.
They have dismissed estimates of the effect of the “one big, beautiful bill” on the deficit as incorrect and described cuts to the health insurance program for poor Americans as simply trimming “waste, fraud and abuse.”
Here’s a fact-check of some of their claims.
What Was Said
False. The bill passed by the House will reduce federal spending on Medicaid by at least $600 billion over a decade and reduce enrollment by about 10.3 million people, according to a preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. But most of the changes to Medicaid have little to do with waste, fraud or abuse as defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service.
Edwin Park, a professor at Georgetown University whose research focuses on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, said that some provisions could qualify as cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” like increasing assessments to make sure beneficiaries are not deceased.
But most other provisions fit into several categories of cuts and restrictions, according to Professor Park, targeting Medicaid expansion, limiting states’ ability to finance Medicaid, imposing red tape on beneficiaries, rolling back protections against medical debt, forcing states to drop coverage, and limiting access to care and long-term care.