During Former President Joe Biden’s term in office, his Executive Order 14009 has been revoked by President Donald Trump within his first term.
This order was meant to strengthen Medicaid, which is financial assistance towards families with low income or in need, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Whilst executive orders cannot change the law of the land, it can signify an administration’s attempt to guide the federal agency to other policies.
With that order, Biden had included that the order was mainly directed towards the U.S. Department of Health and Services (HHS), which was his method to address any sort of barriers that prohibited individuals from accessing Medicaid or ACA coverage.
However, Democratic led representatives think that revoking this will not only harm citizens but result in a breach within constitutional rights.
Many Republican representatives think the opposite of this, where they reason that to be able to reduce federal spending, they have singled out Medicaid as one of the top choices.
Trump has stated that though he would not make cuts to public health care programs for many low income and disabled Americans, but White House and Republican Congressional members are considering a multitude of options for potential cuts to Medicaid that add up to the $2.3 trillion cuts over the next decade.
Some Medicaid experts say making these cuts overlap and would push people off the program completely as Medicaid provides over 80 million low income and disabled Americans but in 2023, cost taxpayers $870 billion.
By shrinking the program, conservatives and libertarians think that it would constitute a better program overall for citizens.
Within his confirmation hearing to become Trump’s secretary of Human Health and Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated, “Medicaid is not working for Americans. We are spending $900 billion and our people are getting sicker every single year”, apart from showing very minimal basic understanding of Medicaid.
This goes into Trump’s latest joint session with congress which had multiple democratic members protesting in regards to the Trump administration’s take on the program.
Including when Texas Representative Al Green proceeded to shout, “No Mandate” before being escorted away. Though in a recent press release, the White House stated that Trump will not in fact get rid of Social Security or Medicaid despite multiple points the administration has been making and what other media corporations say.
Most of that has to do with the fact that Trump thinks of Medicaid and Medicare as entitlement programs that support taxpayers losing their money to fraud.
But what conservative representatives mainly want is to reduce the amount of fraud, improper payments, waste, and abuse within the program to make it more efficient.
This only works with having people eventually getting kicked off the program, despite those people potentially needing Medicaid.
In 2023, 92 percent of recipients over the age of 65 who were not receiving benefits were already working, which is why Medicaid changing work enrollments would lead to fewer people needing it and a smaller program in general, which would equate to solidifying the spending cuts needed to make Trump’s Tax Cut policy.
So, it goes back to the question of: Will Trump get rid of Medicaid? If the White House’s answer is no, many Americans can see right now that they are unsure themselves.
As much as Medicaid is popular within American voters, this is mainly to cater towards voters that are within swing states to determine the next future president’s term.