The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is accusing Democrats of lying about President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’
Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital on Monday he believed Democrats had been waging a ‘fear campaign to scare Americans’ ever since Republicans began discussions about the budget reconciliation process.
‘Now, Democrats are pedaling incorrect reports that include policies that aren’t even in the bill,’ Guthrie said.
‘This bill refocuses Medicaid on mothers, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly – not illegal immigrants and capable adults who choose not to work.’
The Kentucky Republican was specifically referring to his panel’s portion of Trump’s bill, the text of which was released late on Sunday night.
The Energy and Commerce Committee, which has broad jurisdiction, including over federal health programs, telecommunications and energy, was tasked with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts to pay for other priorities in the bill.
It’s the largest share of any of the 11 committees involved in the reconciliation process – some of which have been given additional funding to enact Trump’s priorities on tax cuts, defense, immigration and the border.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, said on Monday the legislation would likely achieve even more savings than its $880 billion benchmark.
Guthrie himself told Republicans on a lawmaker-only call on Sunday night that the committee found ‘north of $900 billion’ in savings, a source told Fox News Digital.
Democrats immediately seized on the legislation as what they saw as a smoking gun of Republican plans to cut Medicaid.
But the details released on Sunday night appear to show House GOP leaders veered away from the much more severe cuts to the low-income healthcare program that some conservative lawmakers were pushing.
The legislation would put a new 80-hour-per-month work requirement on certain able-bodied adults receiving Medicaid, aged 19 through 64.
It would also put guardrails on states spending funds on their expanded Medicaid populations. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed states to expand Medicaid coverage to adults who make up to 138% of the poverty level.
More specifically, states that provide Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants could see their federal Medicaid reimbursement dollars diminished, putting more of that cost on the state itself.
The bill would also require states with expanded Medicaid populations to perform eligibility checks every six months to ensure the system is not being abused.
State Medicaid plans would be affected by a moratorium on any new state provider taxes, while freezing current rates where they are. State provider taxes are state-imposed fees on healthcare providers that help those states get more federal funding for Medicaid.
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, released a CBO projection requested by his own party that said at least 13.7 million people would lose health insurance based on a draft of Republicans’ Medicaid proposals.
‘Let’s be clear, Republican leadership released this bill under cover of night because they don’t want people to know their true intentions,’ Pallone said.
‘This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone. The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking healthcare away from millions of Americans. Nowhere in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ – they’re cutting people’s healthcare and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.’
Guthrie dismissed the calculations in the Democrats’ press release.
‘It is reckless that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claimed an artificially high number in alleged coverage loss just so they can fearmonger and score political points,’ he told Fox News Digital.
‘This reconciliation is a win for Americans in every part of the country, and it’s a shame Democrats are intentionally reflexively opposing commonsense policies to strengthen the program.’
Republicans are expected to advance the Energy and Commerce portion of the bill on Tuesday afternoon. If it passes through committee, it will be added to the final bill, which Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to pass the House by Memorial Day.