“On Feb. 25, I voted sure on a price range decision that protects Social Safety, Medicare, and Medicaid whereas reducing some spending elsewhere.”
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), in a YouTube video posted March 4, 2025
On Feb. 25, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) voted in favor of a Home price range decision that requires sharp cuts in spending throughout an enormous array of presidency areas. Medicaid is among the many packages that might be in danger — catapulting it to the middle of the political debate.
President Donald Trump has insisted he gained’t hurt Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Safety advantages, saying his administration is trying to root out fraud. However Democrats have pushed again, saying the sheer measurement of the proposed cuts will lead to hurt to the Medicaid program, its enrollees, and medical suppliers.
A KFF monitoring ballot has discovered widespread public help for Medicaid, which suggests efforts to chop this system may face political headwinds. KFF is a well being data nonprofit that features KFF Well being Information.
LaLota, who represents a part of Lengthy Island, posted a video for his constituents explaining his place: “I voted sure on a price range decision that protects Social Safety, Medicare, and Medicaid whereas reducing some spending elsewhere.” As a result of a lot of his video targeted on Medicaid, we did too. We discovered that his assertion on this regard was layered with mischaracterizations and inaccuracies. But, in his video, LaLota advises his constituents to get their data straight from him, saying, “I’ll all the time be sincere with you.”
We requested LaLota’s workplace for the knowledge he used to again up his assertion. The price range decision makes no cuts to these packages, he wrote in a press release emailed by his communications aide Mary O’Hara. “Quite, it opens the door to guard Medicaid with commonsense options which guarantee its availability for these People who qualify, together with the elimination of illegals from the rolls, work necessities for able-bodied adults, and the elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Let’s parse what the decision does say and do, and the adjustments it may set off for Medicaid.
Explaining the Fundamentals
Finances resolutions should not legislation, however moderately blueprints that information lawmakers on budget-related laws. The Home-passed decision — authorised with 217 Republicans voting for it and 214 Democrats and one Republican towards — is only one a part of the price range course of. The Senate additionally has a say, so adjustments are potential.
As written, the decision seeks broad spending reductions throughout a spread of areas overseen by varied committees. It particularly asks the Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce to submit proposals “to cut back the deficit by not lower than $880,000,000,000 [$880 billion] for the interval of fiscal years 2025 by means of 2034.”
It doesn’t say it will defend Medicaid. The phrase Medicaid is nowhere within the doc. It doesn’t prescribe any particular motion on this system, equivalent to instituting work necessities for recipients. Lawmakers individually draft laws to make program changes to attain the spending minimize targets.
A bit background: Medicaid is a state-federal program that gives medical protection to lower-income residents, in addition to funds to nursing houses for caring for seniors and disabled residents. Medicaid and the intently associated Kids’s Well being Insurance coverage Program cowl greater than 79 million folks.
Medicare is the federal program that gives medical health insurance for some disabled folks and most of the people over age 65. Greater than 68 million persons are enrolled.
The decision directs the committee to draft legislative language that might minimize spending from areas underneath its jurisdiction, which embrace Medicaid and about half of Medicare.
Social Safety is especially overseen within the Home by the Committee on Methods and Means. The panel additionally shares jurisdiction over Medicare with Vitality and Commerce.
Coverage specialists and the Congressional Finances Workplace have mentioned that, after eradicating Medicare from consideration, there’s not sufficient underneath the committee’s jurisdiction to chop $880 billion with out considerably decreasing Medicaid spending. (Medicare is mostly thought of a 3rd rail as a result of its beneficiaries are a strong voting bloc.)
Certainly, of the $8.8 trillion in projected spending underneath the committee’s purview for the 10-year interval, Medicaid accounts for $8.2 trillion, or 93%.
“Even when the committee eradicated all of non-Medicare and non-Medicaid spending, they’d nonetheless have to chop Medicaid by properly over $700 billion,” mentioned Alice Burns, an affiliate director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
Including work necessities — most Medicaid recipients have already got jobs — wouldn’t yield that degree of financial savings and may enhance state prices. Different cuts instructed by Republicans, together with capping federal spending per enrollee, decreasing federal matching {dollars}, and eliminating using supplier taxes, which states use to pay for his or her share of Medicaid spending, may pressure states to chop spending or discover new income sources.
“Cuts to Medicaid may imply eliminating protection for youngsters, dad and mom, working adults or those that would possibly want long run care; limiting advantages; or reducing fee charges for well being plans or suppliers. These decisions may come at a time when state income development is slowing, and most states face necessities to move balanced budgets,” in line with an evaluation by Robin Rudowitz, vice chairman of the KFF Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
The downstream results if the Home-passed price range decision had been enacted can be wide-ranging and considerably alter the security internet program, mentioned Edwin Park, a analysis professor on the Heart for Kids and Households at Georgetown College.
He famous rising opposition to such large-scale Medicaid cuts from “beneficiaries and oldsters of youngsters with disabilities, households with dad and mom in nursing houses, and from well being care suppliers.”
“Medicaid cuts are extremely unpopular even amongst Trump voters,” he mentioned.
Opposition to Medicaid cuts helped kill the 2017 try and repeal the Reasonably priced Care Act in the course of the first Trump administration, famous Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus on the American Enterprise Institute.
Antos thinks the present spending minimize goal is unrealistic and can probably not survive the hassle to merge the Home price range blueprint with what the Senate needs to do.
“Finally, the issue is you possibly can’t take that a lot out of Medicaid,” Antos mentioned.
LaLota’s give attention to immigrants missing authorized standing as a strategy to cut back federal spending on Medicaid can also be deceptive.
Numerous states, together with New York, supply protection to youngsters or adults no matter immigration standing, however they’ll use solely state cash to pay for such packages.
“States can’t use federal funding to cowl undocumented immigrants,” Burns mentioned. So eradicating them “gained’t do something for the deficit discount targets.”
Our Ruling
LaLota mentioned, “On Feb. 25, I voted sure on a price range decision that protects Social Safety, Medicare, and Medicaid whereas reducing some spending elsewhere.”
His assertion is inaccurate and mischaracterizes legal guidelines and the language included within the price range decision, making a misunderstanding of what his vote supported.
The 32-word sentence that directs the Vitality and Commerce Committee to trim $880 billion over 10 years from packages it authorizes doesn’t embrace any protections, guardrails, or particular instructions for the panel to observe.
We price this declare False.
Sources:
Rep. Nick LaLota, constituent video, March 4, 2025.
Clerk, United States Home of Representatives, “Roll Name 50 | Invoice Quantity H. Con. Res. 14,” Feb. 25, 2025.
Newsweek, “Donald Trump Points Social Safety, Medicaid Replace,” March 10, 2025.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, press launch, March 16, 2025.
KFF, February monitoring ballot, March 7, 2025.
Medicaid.gov, “October 2024 Medicaid & CHIP Enrollment Knowledge Highlights,” accessed March 17, 2025.
Congressional Finances Workplace, letter to Reps. Brendan Boyle and Frank Pallone, March 5, 2025.
KFF Fast Takes, “As Governors Meet in D.C., Doable Federal Medicaid Cuts Loom as Huge State Funding Situation,” Feb. 20, 2025.
KFF, “Key Details on Well being Protection of Immigrants, Jan. 15, 2025.
Phone interview with Joseph Antos, senior fellow emeritus, American Enterprise Institute, March 17, 2025.
Phone interview with Edwin Park, analysis professor on the Heart for Kids and Households, Georgetown College, March 17, 2025.
Phone interview with Alice Burns, affiliate director, Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured, KFF, March 17, 2025.