After repeatedly and openly lying about how they intend to pay for a nightmare reconciliation bill that will destroy the American labor class while enriching the uber-wealthy, the GOP quietly released some of their mathematics in the dead of night yesterday and surprise: Republicans are planning to slash $715B from Medicaid over the next 10 years, just like everyone who pointed out they were lying said would happen.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/republican-medicaid-bill-text

'Under Cover of Night,' GOP Unveils Plan to Kick Over 8 Million Off Medicaid

"The legislation includes major changes to Medicaid that, if enacted, would kick millions from the program, including work requirements for some enrollees and new payment mandates for adults living above 100% of the federal poverty level—which, for a single individual, is $15,650 in annual income for 2025.

A snap analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the healthcare section of the new Republican bill would cut spending by at least $715 billion over the next decade and leave at least 8.6 million more people without insurance.

"Many of the Medicaid proposals from House Republicans are technical and wonky, and will be difficult for the public to absorb," said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. "What won't be difficult to absorb: CBO's estimate that the changes will increase the number of people without health insurance by at least 8.6 million."

This discussion is going to get a little wonky, so let's just start off with the bottom line stuff you need to know:

- Trump, his administration, and the entire GOP repeatedly promised that they'd deliver a permanent tax cut for rich people without touching Medicaid.

- Now they've shown their work and independent analysis by the CBO says it's going to cut $715B from Medicaid funding; again, to pay for massive tax cuts for rich people.

- The proposal also makes a propaganda play at implying they're coming after "waste, fraud, and abuse" by drastically increasing the amount of red tape to confirm eligibility; in practice this means a lot of people who think they're covered, are going to find out they're not at the worst possible time. Mistakes will be made, large numbers of people will be thrust into medical debt.

- The scheme also increases the amount of "cost-sharing requirements" for coverage; in plain terms this means Medicaid recipients will pay more out of pocket for coverage, full stop.

- The plan also adds an 80 hour per month work requirement for Medicaid coverage, despite the fact that similar efforts at the state level in GOP controlled areas have not produced the desired savings, and have been a health coverage disaster in those states.

- The GOP is literally going to take life-saving healthcare and support away from 8.6M of the poorest people in America, so Elon Musk can hire more social media influencers to birth his children.

Okay, so now we get into the weeds. As mentioned above, the Republican Party is doing all of this to offset 880 billion dollars worth of tax cuts for the wealthy. Because they don't have the seats in the Senate to get a bill like this through normally, they intend to use reconciliation to force a straight majority vote; but to do that, they budget has to be spending neutral. Which means permanent tax cuts for the wealthy have to be offset by equal cuts to spending elsewhere.

Trump and the GOP promised to pay for these cuts by hunting out "waste, fraud, and abuse" through DOGE and the implementation of tariffs that were going to make us rich enough to end income tax; predictably neither of those schemes worked out. The *most* generous verifiable estimates have DOGE finding $50B worth of "waste" to cut, which might sound like a lot of money but is miniscule compared to what Musk claimed they'd find and also isn't $880B to pay for rich people's tax cuts. Tariffs of course, have been an even bigger joke and Trump is already trying to roll back most of his trade war. So now the war on "waste, fraud, and abuse" means throwing poor people off Medicaid and calling that efficiency.

The reason critics were able to predict the GOP would have to come for vital healthcare and social aid programs like Medicaid is because there was nowhere else to find that much money to give to rich people; and the entire Trumpenreich knew that. This was always the plan; but the question of whether or not they can even get *Republicans* to pass it remains unresolved. Due to how Medicaid funding works on a need basis, this is going to affect the poorest "red" states in America the most and many GOP officials, including Missouri Senator (R) Josh Hawley have indicated that they are, at least for now, strongly opposed to Medicaid cuts. Whether the Trump regime and Musk's wallet can threaten them enough to force compliance, is an open question.