Republicans Just Passed A Budget That Would Cut $1.8 Trillion From Health Care Programs

GOP budget is just a massive wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich. 

GOP cuts to health programs deeper than previous Obamacare repeal proposals.

$473 billion in proposed Medicare cuts

Donald Trump and Republicans are celebrating the passage of a budget outline that they hope will pave the way for the tax cuts they plan to pass.

And while there are little details about the Republican tax plan, all available information indicates that the benefits of the tax cuts will go almost exclusively to the wealthy.

One of the large remaining questions is how Republicans plan to pay for the tax cuts for the higher income earners.

That’s where the budget resolution comes in.

In order to pay for the massive tax cuts for millionaire and billionaires, Republicans are proposing at least $1.8 trillion in cuts to health programs. Including $473 billion in cuts to Medicare.

As of now, it looks like Republicans are aiming to pass about $1.5 trillion in tax cuts. This means that not only are they planning to finance tax cuts for the rich with cuts to health programs for low and middle-income Americans and the elderly, but they are also planning at least $300 billion in additional cuts to health programs above and beyond what they need to pay for the tax cuts.

As Vox points out, “Funding for non-Medicare health programs, most notably Medicaid and Obamacare, would take a $1.3 trillion hit, a 20 percent cut over the course of 10 years, increasing to a 29.3 percent cut by 2027. This is even larger than the 10-year Medicaid cuts included in Graham-Cassidy or the American Health Care Act, though smaller than the massive cuts of Trump’s budget proposal, which would’ve cut Medicaid nearly in half by 2027.”

Not just health programs that would suffer

The Republican budget also calls for $653 billion over 10 years for so-called “income security” programs.

Here are the programs on the chopping block in the Republican budget:

  • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps)
  • Supplemental Security Income
  • Earned income tax credit (for people too poor to pay taxes)
  • Unemployment insurance
  • Military and civilian federal employee pensions

The bottom line on this Republican budget plan is that it is nothing more than a massive wealth redistribution program to take from the poor and give to the rich.