House Budget Plan Could Slash Medicaid: How VA Reps Voted

VIRGINIA — The Virginia delegation in the U.S. House split on a GOP budget blueprint Tuesday evening that calls for deep spending cuts, potentially including $880 billion to Medicaid, which more than 1.8 million of their constituents rely on for health coverage.

The resolution was a crucial step toward delivering President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts. It narrowly passed, 217-215, overcoming a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.

Virginia’s six Democrats joined members of their party to vote against the bill, while the state’s five Republican lawmakers voted in favor of it.

“It’s great to see the budget pass! Now it's time to implement President Trump's America First agenda: secure our borders, unleash energy, cut waste, and extend tax cuts,” Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia) said in a statement on X. “Together, let’s reverse Biden’s failures and put hardworking Americans first!”

Only one Republican — Congressman Tom Massie of Kentucky — voted against the blueprint.

The potentially largest cut to Medicaid in U.S. history could be a sticking point for some moderate Republicans in the long, cumbersome process ahead to pass the budget. That includes weeks of committee hearings to draft the details and send the House version to the Senate, where Republicans passed their own scaled-back version.

Medicaid is the primary comprehensive health and long-term care program used by 1 in 5 Americans, and accounts for nearly $1 out of every $5 spent on health care, according to KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), an independent provider of health policy research, polling and news.

“The Republican budget scheme will explode the deficit, slash funding for education and Medicaid all while giving massive tax cuts to corporations and the billionaire class,” Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Virginia) said Tuesday.

In a statement shared on X, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Virginia) said he voted no on the Republican budget because “it will cut Medicaid for families across Virginia and hurt working families.”

“Kids will go hungry and millions will suffer,” he added.

Even as they press ahead, Republicans are running into a familiar problem: Slashing federal spending is typically easier said than done. With cuts to the Pentagon and other programs largely off limits, much of the other government outlays go for health care, food stamps, student loans and programs relied on by their constituents.

Several Republican lawmakers worry that scope of the cuts being eyed — particularly some $880 billion over the decade to the committee that handles health care spending, including Medicaid, for example, or $230 billion to the agriculture committee that funds food stamps — will be too harmful to their constituents back home.

GOP leaders insist Medicaid is not specifically listed in the initial 60-page budget framework, which is true; the proposal directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to cut $880 billion in spending over the next decade. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and his leadership team also told lawmakers they would have plenty of time to debate the details as they shape the final package.

Medicaid is a valued safety net program, according to a recent KFF poll that showed 77 percent of Americans and 84 percent of Medicaid recipients view it favorably. Nearly half (46 percent) and two-thirds of Medicaid enrollees believe the federal government isn’t spending enough on the program, according to the poll.

According to data from KFF, Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), of Medicaid recipients nationwide:

• 82 percent are children living below the poverty level;
• 62 percent are people living in nursing homes;
• 41 percent are pregnant women giving birth;
• 39 percent are children;
• 31 percent are non-elderly adults with disabilities;
• 19 percent are Medicare recipients.