President Donald Trump said repeatedly on the campaign trail that, if elected, he wouldn’t cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. As recently as last week, accompanied by his surrogate Elon Musk, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity the same thing.
Yet, U.S. House Republicans got a different message that was tucked into Project 2025. They passed a budget resolution that calls for tax cuts of $4.5 trillion and a $2 trillion cut in federal spending through 2035.
In that proposal, Medicaid, which supports health care for low-income people, people in nursing homes and those with disabilities, would be slashed by $880 billion. That would pave the way for Trump to extend his 2017 tax cut for America’s wealthiest people, which is set to expire this year. And it threatens the medical safety net created by America’s Affordable Care Act.
Now it’s up to the Republican-led Senate and House to reconcile the differences between an earlier Senate plan and the recent House version.
The $880 billion in Medicaid funding helps just as many people in red states as it does people in blue states, and likely even more, since poverty rates are higher in states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.
More than 1.8 million Washingtonians are enrolled in Medicaid. Such a cut would hit Washington hard, and would hurt Republican areas more heavily than Democratic ones.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office said Medicaid funded 23% of inpatient care in Washington and 19% of outpatient care in 2023, citing figures from the Washington State Hospital Association.
Eight rural hospitals in Washington receive over 25% of their total reimbursements from Medicaid, Cantwell’s office said.
Yet, the state’s two Republican Congress members, District 4 Rep. Dan Newhouse, and District 5 Rep. Michael Baumgartner, voted in favor of the cuts to Medicaid, despite their districts having the highest percentage of recipients of Medicaid benefits of all of Washington districts, 38% in District 4 — 70% of which are children — and 30% in District 5.
“The passage of this resolution unlocks the process to rein in out-of-control spending, secure our border, and achieve energy dominance,” Newhouse, who once voted to impeach Trump, said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to working with my colleagues in both chambers to identify savings, and efficiencies, in our federal spending as we move forward.”
A grain of hope now lies with a few Republicans like Kentucky’s Sen. Mitch McConnell who have nothing to lose or fear as their time in Washington sunsets. It’s up to them to muster up the courage to vote in the interest of their constituents and the country — not Trump, Musk and the Project 2025 agenda.
