Some of the House Republicans who have doubted Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget plan said Monday night that they’re more inclined to support the blueprint after GOP leaders ruled out certain cuts to Medicaid in a private meeting.
GOP leaders provided some generic but reassuring details about how they would protect certain Medicaid services and not cut into the share of federal payments for Medicaid, a joint state-federal program, according to several lawmakers who attended the late night confab in Johnson’s office.
A group of swing-district Republicans and others representing redder areas were in the meeting, along with House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). Those members have demanded more detail from GOP leaders on how they would reach the $2 trillion in spending cuts they are laying out without making deep cuts to Medicaid services and benefits.
Leaving the meeting, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said that Guthrie addressed some of the issues that had been of concern to her — including increasing the share of states’ responsibility in the joint state-federal Medicaid program. She said she is now leaning toward voting for the budget plan, claiming there are “hundreds of billions” of dollars in savings from addressing waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid as well as separate energy policy options that could reach the $880 billion in savings set out for Guthrie’s panel.
“It’s moving in the right direction,” Malliotakis said. “There’s a lot of space to address the issue without hurting beneficiaries.”
GOP leaders have been scrambling for alternative spending offsets in order to assuage members who have raised serious concerns about the GOP plans for Medicaid and other safety-net programs.
The progress is good news for Speaker Mike Johnson, who is hoping to hold a floor vote on the budget plan Tuesday night. It advanced out of the Rules Committee on Monday night in a key procedural step.
Johnson also faces opposition several other more-dug-in GOP holdouts who want deeper spending cuts in the plan, including Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.) and Victoria Spartz (Ind.).
