Republicans Missed a Shot at Serious Medicaid Reform
Recently passed legislation does little to address the program’s core flaws.
You might want to hold that applause.
Photographer: Samuel Corum/Getty Images North America
Every decade since the 1970s, Congress has tried and failed to reform Medicaid, the health entitlement for the poor. Republican lawmakers’ latest effort — as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — appears to be no different. Instead of addressing the program’s core deficiencies, the party instead fixated on shrinking it. The likely result? Needless disruption and little in the way of serious savings or reform.
All told, the bill seeks to cut about $1 trillion from federal Medicaid spending over a decade. This savings largely would be achieved through a series of technical changes that nonetheless would be costly and difficult to implement, and thus may not fully materialize.