Republicans Are Cutting Medicare. Not Only Medicaid, Medicare.

[justaprogressive]

It’s always appropriate to bet on the House Freedom Caucus caving to their leader Donald Trump. That’s what happened at 3:20 a.m. this morning, when various assurances, including a potential second reconciliation bill for the 2026 fiscal year, flipped all of them to yes on the Republican mega-bill, which takes food and medicine away from the most vulnerable people in America to give the wealthiest a tax cut.

Those Freedom Caucus members, and all but one member of the Republican caucus, voted early this morning on the rule governing debate on the bill. Before the vote on final passage, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries unleashed an epic speech that has passed the six-hour mark and is still going. It is a kind of talking filibuster, afforded through the tradition of the “magic minute” granted to the opposition leader. But it is just delaying the inevitable: Republicans have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill unchanged, after several members spent a week railing against the betrayal of changes made that added more debt, weakened the phaseout of clean-energy tax credits, inserted a corrupt deal that will incentivize states to make more payment errors in their SNAP program, and deepened cuts to Medicaid, which will bring the health system to the brink of devastation.


But now Republicans have created another problem. They didn’t just cut Medicaid; they also have forced nearly half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, the health program for the elderly.

Because of a statutory requirement to automatically impose budget cuts when legislation increases the deficit, the Big Beautiful Bill would require automatic sequestration cuts across the board, something that has been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) but has been largely absent from the debate over the bill. Medicare is one of the programs that will face the axe, and the damage sums to $490 billion over the next ten years, starting in the next fiscal year that begins in October. While many of the safety-net cuts in the bill are delayed to help Republicans with their re-election campaigns, the Medicare cuts must begin next year.

The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act of 2010 requires the Office of Management and Budget to keep scorecards that track the cumulative effects of legislation on the budget deficit, based on estimates from the CBO. The Senate version of the Big Beautiful Bill adds roughly $3.3 trillion in debt over the next ten years. That will have to be made up through automatic sequestration cuts.

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-03-republicans-cutting-medicare-not-only-medicaid/

[MichMan]

1. More about PAYGO

While the PAYGO principle can exist as an informal norm or an internal congressional rule, it was formally re-established as federal law through the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010. This Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 12, 2010, as Title I of Public Law 111-139 (H.J.Res. 45) and is codified at 2 U.S. Code § 931 et seq. Its stated purpose was to “reestablish a statutory procedure to enforce a rule of budget neutrality on new revenue and direct spending legislation”.

The legislative path of the Act saw it introduced in the House of Representatives by then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. It was eventually attached in the Senate to legislation raising the federal debt limit and passed largely along party lines, with a majority of Democrats supporting it and a majority of Republicans opposing it. This attachment to “must-pass” debt limit legislation is a common legislative tactic but also underscores the high stakes involved in both fiscal rules and debt management.

The Statutory PAYGO Act of 2010 applies specifically to new legislation that affects direct spending (also known as mandatory or entitlement spending) and revenues. If a new law is projected to increase direct spending or decrease revenues, it must be offset by corresponding spending cuts or revenue increases so as not to increase the deficit.

However, the law includes several key exclusions, significantly narrowing its effective scope:

https://govfacts.org/explainer/understanding-pay-as-you-go-paygo-vs-statutory-paygo-in-federal-budgeting/

[Dixiegrrrl]

2. Everyone needs to know this, esp. by midterms.

Get a list of those who voted for Medicare cuts and share the names of those running for re-election.
That's a lot of baby boomers and their families who will be voting.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

14. The entire Republican Party except Sen. Massie and Rep. Fitzpatrick.

They will be gone, since Trump is going after them.

[yliza]

3. On Wednesday one republican said: Congessmen aren't Trump's little bitches

Um, yes, yes they are.

It was Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin.

[Robertmiller1220]

4. That Smirking Bastard

Johnson is a Constitutional Scholar and should know better.

[llmart]

6. An honest question for you...

Why do you say he's a constitutional scholar?

[Robertmiller1220]

7. Johnson Constitutional Scholar

Johnson has a law degree. He was a constitutional lawyer before entering politics. You can read more about him on his Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Johnson

[llmart]

11. There really is no official designation of "constitutional scholar".

It's sort of a self-proclaimed title. So you can argue one case in front of a State court on a constitutional basis and then call yourself a constitutional scholar.

I worked at law school. It was a 5th tier law school. All students took constitutional law first year. There are a lot of private law schools that are established strictly to push their own agendas such as Ave Maria Law School in Florida which is Catholic. Their only goal is to teach students how to overturn Roe v. Wade. It's hardly unbiased. So Johnson argued his conservative interpretation of Louisiana's state law in a state that is clearly mostly conservative.

One of the things I learned from working at a law school was that my naive notion of how anyone with a law degree is intelligent. The particular law school where I worked was dedicated to serve a population that was diverse and not able to afford the more prestigious law schools. We had one professor that had taught constitutional law for decades. I would call him a constitutional scholar a hundred times over compared to Johnson.

From wiki it's also interesting that he tried to start his own private law school and it never got off the ground.

[Robertmiller1220]

12. All Good Points

Well said. We need more Folks like you in the Resistance. Glad that you are with us.

[llmart]

16. Thanks.

As a reminder, Trump once claimed that he was a constitutional scholar.

[misanthrope]

18. "My naive notion of how anyone with a law degree is intelligent"

I was possessed of that into undergrad studies. Then I got called for jury duty one quarter. Of course, I went as I considered it my civic duty. I sat on two juries, one of which was a fairly easy case with only an hour or so of deliberation.

The other jury was on a case wherein a 16-year-old male with a pronounced learning disability was being prosecuted by the state for trespassing on a middle school's grounds where he had been warned not to return in search of his young cousin who was enrolled there. He had to depend on a public defender and the rotation gave him a young attorney who had just passed the bar. The lawyer wasn't just green, but kind of dumb to boot.

In deliberation, the jury decided that this kid shouldn't have been prosecuted for this technical breach of the law -- we all felt sorry for him -- but his attorney was so inept in presenting his case that we couldn't in good conscience find for the defendant. His lawyer HAD NOT made the case and the jurors were pretty frustrated by it. So we deliberately hung our decision. It would provide the kid with another turn at court during which his attorney might do a better job.

I have seen his attorney numerous times in the decades since then without revealing my presence on that jury. He is an idiot who comes from a locally respected family of lawyers and has largely gotten by on his family's practice and reputation. I've also met numerous other local attorneys in the time since then who have shown me the wide range of acumen and intelligence in their profession.

[BidenRocks]

5. When you get older

The stress will kill you as fast as anything.
Every day my head feels like it's going to

I hate this. I TOLD YA SO!!!

[Evolve Dammit]

8. An attack on seniors pure and simple. Fuck 'em.

[BoRaGard]

9. republicon lies are legion

[Mr.Bee]

10. Because

of course!

[WilliamPlanke]

13. As usual, AARP hasn't mentioned this one

So much for being the “lobbyist” in DC for retired people.

Glad I already cancelled my membership.

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. AARP isn't lobbying this because they own

a large stake in the UHC Medicare Advantage plan.

It is in their financial best interest to see Medicare dismantled and turned over to the private for-profit sector.

[progressoid]

17. Yeah. Fuck AARP