Author: Al Jazeera
Published on: 12/03/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
Republican budget measure would “set in motion the largest cut to Medicaid in American history” Republicans said Democrats were distorting the Republican budget. Republicans are looking for massive budget savings to meet their goal of fully extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. This is a separate process from Congress’s need to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running by Friday. Republicans ruled out cuts to Medicare, the health insurance programme for senior citizens. When Medicare is set aside, Medicaid accounts for 93 percent of the funding under the committee’s jurisdiction. If Medicare cuts are off the table, the only way to achieve $880bn in savings is through big Medicaid cuts. Senate Republicans are taking a different approach and haven’t proposed such significant cuts. Any finalised budget blueprint would need Senate Republicans’ buy-in. Senator Josh Hawley said: “I would not do severe cuts to Medicaid” The numbers are starting points that may lead to negotiation among at least Republicans. The Government Accountability Office found $50bn in improper payments in Medicaid and Medicare in 2023. The system used to identify improper payments is not designed to measure fraud. It’s a drop in the overall bucket of the potential $880bn cuts.
Original: 1047 words
Summary: 201 words
Percent reduction: 80.80%
Here’s a human summary cut right from the middle of the article:
[…] even if the committee eliminated all other programmes entirely, it could achieve only $381bn in savings – about 43 percent of the target. “In short, if they don’t want to cut Medicaid [or CHIP], and they don’t want to cut Medicare, the goal of cutting $880bn is impossible,” [Georgetown Professor Andy] Schneider said.
