The proposed fiscal 2018 budget resolution Senate Republicans announced last week would lead to a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid and $473 billion cut to Medicare over the next decade, along with slashing other programs low-income individuals rely on, according to a new report prepared by the Senate Budget Committee minority staff...
On top of giving massive tax breaks to the people “who need it the least,” the proposed budget resolution would result in $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, which “will throw 15 million people off of the health insurance they currently have,” Sanders said Tuesday to reporters on Capitol Hill.
“And then on top of that, what they want to do is provide $470 billion in cuts to Medicare, at a time when so many seniors are struggling to keep their heads above water,” Sanders added.
Republicans on Capitol Hill say it’s unfair to call it a “cut,” because it is instead a reduction in the rate of growth. That slowed growth, however, will come as the population is rapidly aging...
Sanders’s report predicts that if the cuts are applied proportionately, Republicans in total would cut at least $5 trillion over the next decade from education, health care, affordable housing, child care, nutrition assistance, transportation, and other programs.
“But it’s not only cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, it is cuts to nutrition programs,” Sanders said. “The [Women, Infants, and Children] program, designed to provide help to low-income pregnant women and newly born babies, will be cut when we have more infant mortality, higher infant mortality, than any other country. Head Start programs will be cut, child care programs will be cut, affordable housing programs will be cut.”
