Democrats See Political Opening in G.O.P. Budget as Republicans Eye Medicaid Cuts

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

71% : 'This is going to be great television': Trump sums up his showdown with Zelensky.
58% : House Republicans' budget plan requires the committee that oversees Medicaid and Medicare to find more than eight times that in savings.
58% : And because many states have expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, doing so is likely to affect a broad swath of the population in states around the country.
54% : "Work requirements are fine, but 21 percent of the residents in my state receive Medicaid or CHIP," he said, referring to the program that provides health coverage options for children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.
53% : Speaker Mike Johnson has insisted in recent days that they want to find "efficiencies" in Medicaid -- "not cutting benefits for people who rightly deserve that.
53% : One of the Republicans who will almost certainly be squeezed in the process is Representative David Valadao of California, who represents a district where almost two in three people rely on Medicaid.
51% : In 2018, Democrats won back the House, flipping 41 seats including in conservative-leaning places like the suburbs of Utah and Oklahoma by focusing narrowly on a single issue: Republican efforts to overturn a popular health care program, the Affordable Care Act.
46% : "That's what Medicaid is for.
44% : But in the prospect of cuts to Medicaid, which covers more than 70 million Americans, they see a clarifying issue that they hope can help them capture the same kind of energy that catapulted them back to power in 2018.
44% : "The American people are very upset right now, including in the communities I represent, about the Republican effort to take away their health care and enact the largest cut to Medicaid in our country's history.
44% : " In 2017, protesters swarmed Republican town halls across the country and urged their lawmakers not to vote to replace the Affordable Care Act.
43% : Now, as Republicans push a budget resolution through Congress that will almost certainly require some kind of cuts to Medicaid to finance a huge tax reduction, Democrats see an opening to use the same strategy.
43% : " In the early weeks of President Trump's second term, Democrats labored to pick their political targets amid a near-daily barrage of executive orders and moves by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to defund and dismantle federal programs and fire government employees.
43% : "The American people were upset in 2005 when Republicans tried to privatize Social Security.
43% : The American people were upset in 2017 when Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act," Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said in an interview, citing two campaign cycles in which his party wrested back control of the House under a Republican president.
43% : " He said Republicans would not fundamentally change the structure of the program, as some conservatives have long proposed, and would not establish a cap on federal funding for Medicaid.
37% : " "I've heard from countless constituents who tell me the only way they can afford health care is through programs like Medicaid," Mr. Valadao continued, "and I will not support a final reconciliation bill that risks leaving them behind.
35% : One of the Republicans who ultimately opposed the repeal effort, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said she saw parallels between the 2017 push and current attempts to cut Medicaid.
18% : "Instead, Trump and Speaker Johnson are set to kick millions off of health insurance.

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