Most President Trump voters say they oppose any cuts to Medicaid as Republican lawmakers wrestle with how to reach up to $2 trillion in budget cuts through their reconciliation bill, a poll released Monday found.
The poll from Hart Research conducted for the nonprofit Families over Billionaires, which advocates in opposition to tax cuts for the wealthy, found 71 percent of voters who backed President Trump said cutting Medicaid would be unacceptable. Voters overall were even more opposed to it, with 82 percent saying so.
Six in 10 Trump voters also said cutting food and nutrition programs would be unacceptable.
Medicaid has increasingly become a hot topic on Capitol Hill as the GOP seeks to advance its budget proposal to pass Trump’s legislative agenda.
The House Rules Committee voted along party lines on Monday to advance the budget resolution, allowing it to move to the floor for debate and a vote.
The resolution would direct the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find at least $880 billion in budget cuts, raising concerns among Democrats and moderate Republicans that it could mean cuts to Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to more than 70 million, most of them poor and half of them children.
The committee has jurisdiction over the program, and many lawmakers believe making cuts to it, along with food assistance programs, is the only way to reduce spending.
This has forced House GOP leadership to work to win over the more moderate members of the conference who have expressed concern about the possibility.
Meanwhile, House Republicans leaders are downplaying the potential cuts to Medicaid benefits, saying changes to the program would consist of work requirements and reducing fraud, not changes like lowering the federal match for states that have expanded Medicaid.
“Look, Medicaid has never been on the chopping block,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said during a press conference. “If you eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid, you’ve got a huge amount of money that you can spend on real priorities for the country.”
Trump has vowed not to touch Medicaid as part of the cuts but has included a caveat for finding waste or abuse within the program.
The poll was conducted from Feb. 12 to 16 among 1,011 voters.
