Key Republican says savings goal for Trump agenda bill can be reached without cutting Medicaid benefits
The Energy and Commerce Chair’s promise comes as many Republicans worry about slashing a popular program.
by Ben Leonard Politico
03/25/2025
House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie is defending his panel’s savings target to help offset President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda as “realistic” — and suggested Republicans could meet their goal of cutting $880 billion from programs under the committee’s jurisdiction without taking away Medicaid benefits.
The Kentucky Republican’s comments, made during a Washington Post event Tuesday morning on artificial intelligence and tech, comes as the House and Senate are at a standstill over how to resolve the differences between their two budget resolutions. The two chambers need to agree on a single blueprint to be able to move ahead on drafting and passing a bill to enact tax cuts, border security enhancements and energy policy through the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has determined that the Energy and Commerce Committee’s aggressive goal for identifying spending cuts would require lawmakers to make major changes to Medicaid, which insures millions of low-income Americans. Many Republicans across the ideological spectrum on both sides of the Capitol are nervous about the prospect, as Democrats have pummeled the GOP over the issue.
But Guthrie doubled down on the House instructions for $880 billion in spending reductions, saying his committee could hit that goal by rolling back Biden-era climate initiatives. He also said members could find significant savings from Medicaid by targeting what he sees as the program’s unsustainable growth.
“There’s an opportunity to preserve benefits, to make sure people have the benefits they’ve been promised but also get a handle on the large growth … and not take away any benefits,” Guthrie said.
That could come from changes to taxes that states levy on doctors and hospitals to help pay for their share of Medicaid expenditures, rather than using their general funds, Guthrie explained. He also said Republicans could reduce the federal share for states that have chosen to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act, and enact new policies to ensure beneficiaries are actually eligible.
“If a disabled child goes to the doctor in Kentucky, the federal government pays 72 cents. If a healthy adult goes to the doctor, the federal government pays 90 cents. We think that’s just unfair and takes away money, because the states are incentivized to take care of this population because it’s more money,” Guthrie said. “What we want to do is make it fairer.”
But those proposals could face resistance from states in the joint state-federal Medicaid program. They could impact states’ bottom lines and lead them to pull back on benefits or raise taxes, which would lead to resistance from Democratic and Republican governors alike, as well as many Republicans in Congress.