• House Republicans are expected to vote as soon as tonight on a massive spending plan for the next fiscal year. They’re planning to find $2 trillion to cut — and about $800 billion of that would likely come from Medicaid over the next decade. More than 72 million poor and disabled Americans rely on the health insurance program.

• To be clear: This plan would help pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, largely for the rich, and for increased border spending. Gutting Medicaid isn’t explicitly outlined in the plan, but Republican lawmakers believe there’s no other way to save that much money without taking an axe (or a chainsaw, if you will) to the program. The idea makes some Republicans queasy. “Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities,” eight GOP lawmakers wrote in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson this month. Other Republicans in moderate districts have also raised concerns that Medicaid could be gutted.

• House Speaker Mike Johnson shot down any hope that the plan would be changed to address concerns about Medicaid cuts. “There’s nothing specific about Medicaid in the resolution,” he said yesterday. “The legislation comes later, so this is the important first start.” In private, Johnson and others searched, fruitlessly, for a Plan B.

• The MAGA math ain’t mathing. Johnson can only afford to lose a single vote if Democrats remain united against the plan… and at least four Republicans opposed the bill as of this afternoon. Even MAGA Godfather Steve Bannon is skeptical of the Medicaid cuts — or, at least, the political consequences for the GOP. “Just can’t take a meat axe to it, although I would love to,” Bannon recently said on his podcast. 

• In typical fashion, Trump has both urged Congress to pass this plan and promised that he won’t “touch” Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. So nobody really knows WTF he’s really thinking. Leadership!

• The left is united in this battle: “Medicaid provides 40% of the funding for community health centers. Medicaid supports 2 out of 3 people in nursing homes. Medicaid provides health care to 41 million children,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said today. “Trump and his Republican friends want to enact massive cuts to the program. We won't let them.”

• MAGAworld is praying that the math will magically add up. A reporter asked Johnson today: Can you say unequivocally that down the line, there won't be cuts to Medicaid programs? He responded: “Medicaid is hugely problematic because it has a lot of fraud, waste, and abuse.” 

• Okay, sure, there are problems with the program, just like most government initiatives (and literally everything in life). That’s why we have watchdogs to find fraud and abuse — though Trump fired more than a dozen of them. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) warned about the dangers of haphazard cuts: “At what point do you stop cutting into the fat and start cutting into the bone? You can’t pull the rug out from millions of people,” he told Politico.

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