by | May 11, 2025 | The Hill
Legislation introduced by House Republicans late Sunday would slash Medicaid spending significantly by imposing new restrictions on beneficiaries like work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks, but it did not include the most controversial changes that had been floated.
The
comes ahead of what’s expected to be a marathon committee meeting on Tuesday to discuss and advance the measure. It appears to cater more to the moderate wing of the party than to conservatives, who had been agitating for drastic cuts to the program.
The legislation does not include a per-beneficiary cap on federal Medicaid spending. Nor does it contain a reduction in the federal match to states, both of which were being pushed by conservatives.
Moderate and swing-district Republicans had made it clear to leadership they would not support legislation that would cut Medicaid benefits. President Trump repeatedly pledged to protect Medicaid, but he has not gone into detail on what kinds of policies he would support.
Medicaid has emerged as one of the key sticking points in the sweeping legislation Republicans are writing to advance President Trump’s domestic agenda.
The Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, has been tasked with finding $880 billion in savings as part of the overall goal of slashing at least $1.5 trillion to pay for Trump’s domestic priorities, including an extension of his 2017 tax cuts.
Developing.
by | May 11, 2025 | The Hill
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Sunday blasted Republican efforts to reduce Medicaid funding, saying potential cuts would “destroy health care as we know it.”
“This is very simply an effort to destroy health care as we know it, to rip it away from everyday Americans, make it more costly for everybody else,” Lujan Grisham said in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
The Democratic governor warned that potential cuts would have far-reaching consequences across the country.
“It will close hospitals — think something like 432 hospitals across the country are on the edge right now. About a third of their funding … or more, comes from Medicaid. So you have less providers who have fewer access points.”
“No state, including this one — no state can take this kind of cost shifting. And you know, businesses then don’t have employees because they don’t have access to health care. It has a huge economic factor that they aren’t talking about, which is outrageous,” she said.
She also noted that “every state,” including her own, “is going to do everything they can to protect the people they are serving,” saying they’ve taken steps to prepare for reductions in federal support.
The interview comes amid
surrounding spending negotiations, in particular concerning Medicaid.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over Medicaid and is planning to formally consider and vote to advance its portion of the package on Tuesday, but the conference still remains at odds over potential changes to Medicaid. The budget resolution that served as a blueprint for the final bill instructed the panel to achieve at least $880 billion in spending cuts, which experts say is likely impossible without cuts to the safety net program.
Republicans are largely on board with imposing work requirements, six-month registration checks and barring those who entered the country without authorization from the social safety net program, a source told The Hill, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters this week that a controversial proposal to directly reduce the enhanced federal match for states that expanded Medicaid, known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, was off the table, a key red line for moderates.
However, the situation remains uncertain regarding whether the conference will place per capita caps on Medicaid expansion enrollees — another hard no among centrists.
by | May 11, 2025 | The Hill
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Sunday that he does not believe “we’ll have a debt limit suspension” a few days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on
ceiling by the middle of the summer.
“I don’t think we’ll have a debt limit suspension because Republicans like to revisit this conversation,” Cole told NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt on “The Hill Sunday.” “Look, if it was up to the Democrats, they agree, they’d love to get rid of the debt limit … I’ve talked to them.”
“You do that, that’s like never talking about your credit card when you go to the limit. And we like to get to a limit and we’ll have a discussion, and then at least have some reforms to change the trajectory of the debt,” he added later.
Bessent told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday that there is “reasonable probability” that the government’s “cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted in August while Congress is scheduled to be in recess.”
“Therefore, I respectfully urge Congress to increase or suspend the debt limit by mid-July, before its scheduled break, to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Bessent said in a letter to the House Speaker.
Republicans have been hopeful they will be able to bring up the debt limit via a process called budget reconciliation, aiming to raise the debt ceiling within the same vehicle being assembled for the advancement of large portions of President Trump’s agenda with only GOP votes.
Bessent said in his Friday letter that “prior episodes have shown that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can have serious adverse consequences for financial markets, businesses, and the federal government, harm business and consumer confidence, and raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers.”
by | May 11, 2025 | The Hill
Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) on Sunday
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) over recent events at an ICE detention
Newark, N.J.
“There were so many instances where this could’ve all been deescalated, but it was squarely in HSI, ICE’s court, they chose not to,” Menendez told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “They made this a violent scene that we were unfortunately all a part of.”
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D), Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and Menendez visited the ICE detention center on Friday and attempted to get access to the facility. However, Baraka was arrested for trespassing amid the visit, sparking widespread outrage.
“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon. He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody,” Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a post on the social platform X Friday.
Following the visit, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the arrest of the three New Jersey House members was “definitely on the table.”
“We actually have body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer, so we will be showing that to viewers very shortly,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Friday.
In his Sunday appearance on CNN, Menendez said that there were “over 20 armed ICE, HSI officers.”
“They were heavily armed … their faces were covered, and they were wearing no identification,” he added. “So this is who they chose to have come engage with the mayor of Newark and three elected members of the House of Representatives.”
The Hill has reached out to ICE and DHS for comment.
