{"id":43155,"date":"2025-06-06T04:26:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=43155"},"modified":"2025-06-06T04:26:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:26:54","slug":"senate-republicans-open-the-door-to-cutting-medicare-waste-in-trump-agenda-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=43155","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans open the door to cutting Medicare ‘waste’ in Trump agenda bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Looking at new ways to pay for their sprawling bill<\/a> for President Donald Trump\u2019s domestic agenda, Republicans are exploring ideas to slash \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse\u201d in Medicare, several senators said Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And President Donald Trump has blessed the pursuit, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think anything that can be \u2014 that\u2019s waste, fraud and abuse are open to, obviously, discussions,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that Republicans have primarily looked at Medicaid to find savings but that they\u2019re open to looking at other programs, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe focus, as you know, has been on addressing waste, fraud, abuse within Medicaid and, but right now, we\u2019re open to suggestions that people have them about other areas where there is, you know, clearly, waste, fraud and abuse that can be rooted out in any government program,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicare has historically been seen as political third rail, a program members of both parties have been wary of touching in fear of backlash from older voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said they shouldn\u2019t be afraid of cutting waste in Medicare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t we go after that? I think we should,\u201d Cramer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome people are afraid of the topics; I\u2019m not,\u201d he added, noting that they would focus on waste, fraud and abuse. \u201cIn my view, this is our moment as Republicans in control of all three branches, and we ought to be going after more fiscal responsibility. And some people are making that case. Other people are wringing their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Republicans said that they discussed the issue during a closed-door meeting and that it also came up with Trump when Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee met with him Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat the president made clear is [he] does not want to see any cuts to beneficiaries. But to go after, he repeated over again \u2014 the waste, fraud and abuse, the waste, fraud and abuse,\u201d Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House spokesman Kush Desai echoed that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe president has been clear \u2014 no cuts to Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid. This bill addresses waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending,\u201d Desai said in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discussions open up a policy debate that could have explosive political ramifications. Medicare is a highly popular program that provides health insurance to people over 65 years old, and Democrats are already launching attacks on the new GOP discussions about making changes to the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA program that 66 million Americans rely on is not waste, fraud, or abuse \u2014 it\u2019s lifesaving for the constituents of Republicans pushing to gut Medicare,\u201d Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement Thursday. \u201cLet\u2019s be crystal clear: Donald Trump gave Republicans the green light to gut access to lifesaving medication and rip away health insurance to fund tax handouts for billionaires. These dangerous attacks are as disgraceful as they are unpopular \u2014 and will cost Republicans their seats come the midterms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOP leaders are searching for ways to lower the cost of the bill passed by the House, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office<\/a> projects would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. It includes Medicaid and health spending cuts that Republicans describe as \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse,\u201d which the CBO estimates would result in 10.9 million fewer people having insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, some conservative senators insist on mitigating the red ink to vote for the bill. And it\u2019s unclear how narrowly or broadly Senate Republicans would define \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse\u201d when it comes to Medicare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is skepticism in the GOP about pursuing that path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat a terrible idea. We should not be touching Medicare,\u201d Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said, recalling that trying to cut retirement spending has burned the Republican Party in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2004 President Bush got re-elected and promptly tried to privatize Social Security, and Republicans didn\u2019t win the popular vote for 20 years,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cSo if you don\u2019t ever want to win an election again, just go fiddle around with people\u2019s Medicare that they\u2019ve worked hard for, paid into.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawley launched similar criticisms when Republicans began going after Medicaid for savings, but he said he supports most of the spending cuts in the House-passed bill, including the work requirements and eligibility rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talks about Medicare came as news to some Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t heard any discussion of cutting Medicare. That\u2019s a vital program that people have earned their benefits for, and I\u2019m not going to say never, because maybe there\u2019s some waste, fraud, abuse, kind of language, but I certainly would not support cutting Medicare benefits,\u201d Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A potential option senators mentioned is a bipartisan bill that would \u201cimprove the way Medicare Advantage plans assess patients\u2019 health risks and reduce overpayments for care,\u201d according to a description of the legislation. The bill, called the “No UPCODE Act,”<\/a> is co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent CBO report<\/a> said the policies in the bill could save $124 billion over 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo say it has bipartisan support is an underestimate,\u201d Cassidy told NBC News. \u201cI think that would be a reasonable way to protect it, don\u2019t cut benefits, you\u2019re taking care of patients, but you\u2019re trying to rescue the program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Looking at new ways to pay for their sprawling bill for President Donald Trump\u2019s domestic agenda, Republicans are exploring ideas to slash \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse\u201d in Medicare, several senators said Thursday. And President Donald Trump has blessed the pursuit, they said. \u201cI think anything that can be \u2014 that\u2019s waste, fraud and abuse are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":43156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1410,1730,1580,1230],"class_list":["post-43155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-cuts","tag-medicare","tag-republicans","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43157,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43155\/revisions\/43157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}