The Republicans defend Medicaid reform while Democrats warn against harmful cuts

The Democrats have reduced against the potential Medicaid cuts since President Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Now that his “big and beautiful bill” has gone through the congress, they make Medicaid a point of high-level discussion before the competitive mid-term elections expected in 2026.

The Republicans, on the other hand, double the reform of Medicaid included in the megabill of Trump, which also includes radical legislation on taxes, immigration and energy.

“My policy is that if you are a valid worker, get a fucking job,” said representative Nancy Mace, Rs.C., at Fox News Digital. “If you want benefits, go to work and get a job.”

A provision in the megabill requires adults without valid children aged 18 to 64 to work at least 80 hours per month to receive Medicaid services. Individuals can also meet the requirement by participating in the community service, going to school or engaging in a work program.

The Republicans praise “Big, Beautiful Bill’s` Work requirement for Medicaid: “We have to go back to work”

The representative Troy Carter, d-la., And the senator Katie Britt, r-ala., Expressed Medicaid work requirements with Fox News. (Nicholas Balasy – Fox News Digital)

Fox News Digital asked Capitol Hill legislators if taxpayers should have to pay Medicaid bills for valid workers who are under 65 and unemployed.

“ Up to line ”: the reform of Medicaid in “Big, beautiful bill” divides the legislators by the party

Senator Angus King, an independent of Maine, said in Arkansas and Georgia, where the work requirements have already been imposed, he ended up costing taxpayers more money to administer the work requirements.

“We are talking about a very small population, and in both cases where they tried it, it finished, number one, disqualifying the people who met all the requirements but abandoned the documents. They are not people who are used to fulfilling a lot of documents each month. And it also cost the administration a lot,” said King.

The New England Journal of Medicine revealed that Arkansas’ Medicaid work requirement From 2018 to 2019 “found no evidence of an increase in employment … and a significant loss of drug coverage in low -income adults.”

The demonstrators calling for the preservation of Medicaid financing are withdrawn from the energy of the Chamber and the marking of the trade of the budgetary resolution for the 2010 financial year in the Rayburn building on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, included via Getty Images)

Likewise, the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute (GBPI) said that 80% of the $ 58 million spent in the first year of Georgia Pathways to Coverage Program went to administrative costs.

But the senator Katie BrittR-Ala., Said the Republicans “want these programs to be there for people who need them”. She said that Medicaid’s reform is to “strengthen and preserve these programs to the rhythm they develop”.

“These programs were intended to be safety nets, not hammocks in which people remain, and the success of these programs should be measured by the number of people we are removing them,” said Britt.

Senator Bill Cassidy, r-la., Said, saying to Fox News Digital: “What you don’t want is that someone becomes dependent. I would say to people: security networks should be bounced back.

The president of the room, Mike Johnson, speaks to the media after the Chamber has narrowly adopted a bill transmitting the agenda of President Donald Trump to the American Capitol on May 22, 2025, in Washington, DC (Images Kevin Dietsch / Getty)

“We do not say:” Hey, we do not throw you. “Very well, but you need to get a job.

But the Democrats who spoke to Fox News Digital continued to repel the work requirements included in the “big and beautiful bill”.

“I think that people (who) are able to work, trust me, they prefer to work only to get the dollars of piddling that they obtain from Medicaid. It is insulting to suggest that a person prefers to sit at home rather than working and obtaining this meager amount of money. All this has just been completely extensive to adapt to a story that allows them to cut into people who really deserve Medicaid,” rep. Troy Carter, D-La., said.

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And the lateefah representative Simon, D-Calif., Said: “We must be able to have an infrastructure in this country which supports the elderly and the sick and the widows and the child. This bill, it violates all these basic principles.”

Peter Pinedo by Fox News contributed to this report.