House Republicans' plan to take an ax to Medicaid appears to be in real trouble as several Republicans from swing districts are voicing fear that it could harm their own constituents.
One such Republican is Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), who made his case for not cutting Medicaid on the grounds that such cuts won't just hurt "lazy" people.
“Don’t touch seniors’ Medicare, and don’t cut Medicaid, because it isn’t just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people,” Van Drew told the Washington Post this week. “That’s the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue-collar people.”
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Medicaid provides health insurance to more than 70 million Americans and polls have shown that cutting it would be politically perilous for the GOP, particularly if the money saved from the cuts is used to fund more tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the top one percent of earners.
Democratic operatives have reportedly been sharpening their knives to punish the GOP for trying to rip away health care from Americans to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, much as the party did back in 2018 when it won 41 seats in the House of Representatives.