Senate megabill would explode debt and kick 11.8 million off Medicaid: โOur fiscal house is basically on fireโ
New estimates from the Congressional Budget Office have revealed that Senate Republicansโ version of Donald Trumpโs spending package would lead to more Americans losing health coverage than the version of the presidentโs flagship legislation that passed the House last month.
The legislation would push 11.8 million Americans off insurance by 2034, according to the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Over the same period, federal spending on Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare would be cut by $1.1 trillion. More than $1 trillion of the cuts would be made to Medicaid.
The estimates confirm the concerns of some Republicans who are worried about cuts to Medicaid, which amount to the steepest cuts to the federal healthcare program in history. Some Republicans, worried about the deficit and national debt, have pressed for further cuts, while others fear what deep cuts mean for their constituents.
The estimates also clash with Trumpโs promise not to cut Medicaid apart from removing what he describes as fraud and waste.
Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray slammed the bill in a speech on the Senate floor on Sunday,.
โIf you think you can look the American people in the face and tell them we have to bring down the debt after passing what might be the most expensive bill in history, if you think you can do that and then be taken seriously, you know what, if you believe that, maybe you are foolish enough to think that zero and a trillion are the same,โ she said.
โI can tell you right now, if this happens, we will all laugh you out of the room because we have never seen anything like this, not in my time here in the Senate, not in my time on this planet,โ she added. โWe are not going to let anyone forget that you’re trashing the rules in order to pass this egregious bill.โ
Over a decade, the bill would add at least $3.3 trillion to the national debt, according to the CBO. The version passed by the House would have added $2.4 trillion.
The public currently holds about $29 trillion in debt, with the CBO expecting the government to borrow a further $21 trillion over the next 10 years, leading to the assessment that the Republican legislation would worsen an already bad fiscal forecast.
The $3.3 trillion estimate is also an undercount, as it doesnโt include further borrowing costs, which would push the legislation’s full addition to the debt closer to $4 trillion.
โOur fiscal house is basically on fire,โ Democratic Senator Gary Peters said in remarks on the Senate floor on Sunday. โBut if our Republican colleagues jam through this bill, it’s not going to pour water on that fire. It’s going to pour gasoline on those flames.โ
Trumpโs 2017 tax cuts are also driving the costs.
The presidentโs 2017 tax cuts are set to expire this year, but Republicans want to extend them โ amounting to another $3.8 trillion hit to the budget.
Republicans have also added further tax cuts, including Trump’s pledge not to tax tips and overtime, resulting in an overall Senate tax cut of about $4.5 trillion. Steep cuts to Medicaid and other parts of the social safety net are intended to offset those tax reductions.
โThe national debt is at an all-time high, $36.2 trillion. Just in the last 16 years, it has tripled,โ Peters noted in his remarks.
โOur annual deficits frequently exceed $1.5 trillion, including a record $3.1 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2020,โ he said.
โWithin the next decade, our country will spend more on servicing the debt than we do on any other federal account outside of Social Security,โ Peters added.
