House Republicans unveiled sweeping changes to Medicaid on Sunday evening, including provisions to defund Planned Parenthood and bar taxpayer dollars from being used to fund child sex change procedures.
The proposal from the House Energy and Commerce (E&C) committee comes as House Republicans are racing to pass President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” by the end of next week ahead of the Memorial Day recess. House E&C Republicans are proposing to prevent organizations that provide abortions, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for the non-abortion services they offer despite opposition from several moderate GOP lawmakers.
The House E&C Committee has been tasked with identifying at least $880 billion in cuts over a ten-year period to help pay for the president’s sweeping tax priorities. Speaker Mike Johnson is aiming to find at least $1.5 trillion in savings over the period across all House committees.
House E&C Chairman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky reportedly told GOP lawmakers Sunday that lawmakers are on track to cut more than $900 billion over the course of a decade to programs under the panel’s jurisdiction, including Medicaid.
Though the Hyde Amendment bans federal dollars from directly funding abortions, pro-life advocates have demanded that Congressional Republicans end all taxpayer funding to entities that provide abortions.
The provision faces uncertain prospects, however, due to reported opposition from moderate GOP lawmakers who want to preserve Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services. Johnson can afford to lose just three GOP votes on the president’s budget reconciliation package assuming all members are present and voting.
“[E]very GOP House member, even the pro-choice ones, must do the right thing and vote to pass it and end forced taxpayer funding of abortion,” Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins wrote on X Sunday evening.
Guthrie also praised the bill for banning Medicaid from funding child sex change procedures. House Republicans previously targeted left-wing gender ideology in December 2024 by prohibiting the military’s health program, TRICARE, from covering sex change procedures for minors.
“The federal government shouldn’t be subsidizing these procedures in any form, and I am proud that we will be protecting all our children from the lasting, harmful effects of these procedures,” Guthrie wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Sunday.
The House Republicans’ bill would also slash Medicaid spending by imposing work requirements on able-bodied adults in order to qualify and allowing for more frequent eligibility checks to ensure only those who are qualified remain on the entitlement program’s rolls.
Guthrie is seeking to go on the offensive against accusations that GOP lawmakers are stripping millions of Americans of healthcare coverage by reforming the entitlement program.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the House E&C bill would reduce the number of Medicaid recipients by roughly 8.5 million in 2034.
“Undoubtedly, Democrats will use this as an opportunity to engage in fear-mongering and misrepresent our bill as an attack on Medicaid,” Guthrie wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “In reality, it preserves and strengthens Medicaid for children, mothers, people with disabilities and the elderly — for whom the program was designed.”
Democratic New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House E&C panel, slammed House Republicans’ budget bill for allegedly incorporating “devastating Medicaid cuts so billionaires can get another tax break.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has floated passing the budget reconciliation package through the upper chamber by July 4.
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