“During Friday and Saturday’s marathon of votes on amendments, the Republican-majority Senate declined to strike the $880 billion cut from the final resolution but did accept an amendment to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund related to “protecting Medicare and Medicaid.”
The final blueprint also allows the Senate Committee on Finance, which also has jurisdiction over Medicare and Medicaid as well as tax and other fiscal policy, to add up to $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit.
However, the Senate’s budget relies on a controversial mechanism that argues extending tax cuts first enacted in 2017 won’t add to the nation’s debt. The “current policy baseline” assumes cuts that are currently scheduled to expire after this year are included in baseline numbers for spending and revenue.
Without that maneuver, the Senate’s budget would add up to $5.8 trillion to the federal deficit, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The CRFB slammed the move as an “unmitigated disgrace” that lets the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee “literally make up numbers.”
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Republican lawmakers have lately said they’ll focus on reducing fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid instead of cutting services. But the $880 billion target for spending reductions under the Energy and Commerce Committee is impossible without touching the insurance program, according to a report published last month by the Congressional Budget Office.”
Senate advances budget blueprint as healthcare braces for Medicaid cuts | Healthcare Dive