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Massive Medicaid cuts to fuel midterm fights

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Health Care

Health Care

 

The Big Story

Congress passes massive Medicaid cuts, setting up midterm battle

With the GOP successfully passing the largest Medicaid cuts in history through President Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” the federal health program is all but certain to be a core issue for voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

© The Hill, Greg Nash

The law is set to require Medicaid beneficiaries to prove for the first time they are working or in school at least 80 hours per month, equal to part-time, to keep their health insurance, and it also requires more frequent eligibility checks and Medicaid recipients living above the poverty line to pay out-of-pocket copays for most services, including doctor visits and lab tests.

About 17 million people will become uninsured by 2034 because of the health provisions in the bill, as well as the expiration of ObamaCare subsidies, which the bill did not extend.

But a good chunk of the electorate isn’t fully aware of the provisions included in the nearly 1,000-page reconciliation package, and campaign strategists know it’s a matter of who can reach voters first.

“The key here for Republicans going into the midterms is to clearly go on offense and define the debate around Medicaid in particular today, not tomorrow, not next month, not in the fall, not next year. They need to do it in a unified and aggressive way today,” Kristin Davison, partner at the GOP consulting firm Axiom, told The Hill.

Several of the measures don’t go into effect immediately, and the challenge for Democrats will be to keep the changes at top of mind for voters, even if they aren’t experiencing them yet.

"There's an argument to be made here that if voters believe, and it is true that the unpopular bill is really bad for them, it doesn't matter if it's going to be bad for them tomorrow or next year,” a Democratic strategist told The Hill. “If they believe it is bad for them, they will act on that opinion.”

 

Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.

Programming note: We will not publish tomorrow for the July 4 holiday. See you Monday!

 

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Essential Reads

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