{"id":8639,"date":"2025-04-29T12:04:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T12:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-medicaid-mucks-up-the-megabill\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T12:04:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T12:04:29","slug":"capitol-agenda-medicaid-mucks-up-the-megabill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-medicaid-mucks-up-the-megabill\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Medicaid mucks up the megabill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Republicans are hitting a major roadblock in drafting their \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d megabill: Divisions over how deeply to cut Medicaid are threatening to upend the timeline for advancing President Donald Trump\u2019s tax agenda.<\/p>\n

Energy and Commerce Republicans emerged Monday night from a lengthy closed-door meeting largely tight-lipped as the committee figures out the Medicaid problem<\/a>. Chair Brett Guthrie said he still is aiming for a markup next week, but some members are tempering expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can get there, but there are so many different pieces in play that it’s hard to say,\u201d panel member Morgan Griffith told reporters late Monday.<\/p>\n

One of their thorniest issues is how to address states that expanded Medicaid access under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans are considering capping or reducing federal Medicaid payments to those states for the program \u2014 which would make the program more sustainable, Republicans argue, but could lead to millions of people losing coverage.<\/p>\n

“That is an issue we have to negotiate through,\u201d said Guthrie, who has made the case that the changes are necessary to protect the program for the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Behind closed doors, some Republicans are irked that their leaders are not doing enough explaining: One Republican with direct knowledge of the matter told Blue Light News \u201cthere\u2019s frustration for not laying out the rationale behind Medicaid cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Medicaid debate could set off delays elsewhere. While Ways and Means has made some progress on tax issues<\/a>, plenty remains in limbo as members wait for other committees to determine how deeply they can cut spending in their panels\u2019 jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSitting on their hands for a bit makes a lot of strategic sense,\u201d said one former senior GOP Hill aide.<\/p>\n

Once the Medicaid issue is solved, Ways and Means will still have to wait on Agriculture to deal with the next problem: cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Agriculture Committee Republicans are meeting Tuesday to discuss the internally controversial proposal to push some SNAP benefit costs onto states for the first time, according to two Republicans with direct knowledge of the plans. The panel\u2019s markup could slip past next week.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, three other megabill markups begin today. Here\u2019s what we\u2019ll be watching:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Expect sparks to fly in Armed Services, during which Democrats are likely to force tough votes on politically charged amendments, including on the dysfunction at the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Homeland Security will mark up a bill that sends $46.5 billion to expand border security measure including completion of Trump\u2019s border wall.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Education and Workforce could also get testy as Republicans target a rollback of existing student loan repayment plans<\/a> \u2014 a rebuke to former President Joe Biden<\/p>\n

What else we’re watching:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2013 Signalgate on Blue Light News: <\/b>House Rules Republicans approved a provision Monday night<\/a> that would forestall a Democratic effort to force votes on Hegseth\u2019s use of an unclassified messaging app. If the rule is adopted Tuesday, so-called \u201cresolutions of inquiry\u201d could be bottled up through the summer.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Opioid bill reauthorization:<\/b> House Energy and Commerce will debate reauthorizing significant legislation to tackle the opioid epidemic, which Trump signed into law during his first administration. Reauthorization of the bipartisan bill was part of a major health care package lawmakers sought to attach to a year-end spending bill last December. But it got scrapped when Trump and Elon Musk complained the funding measure was too full of extraneous provisions.<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill and Mackenzie Wilkes contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans are hitting a major roadblock in drafting their \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d megabill: Divisions over how deeply to cut Medicaid are threatening to upend the timeline for advancing President Donald Trump\u2019s tax agenda. Energy and Commerce Republicans emerged Monday night from a lengthy closed-door meeting largely tight-lipped as the committee figures out the Medicaid problem. Chair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}