Democrats across the country are sounding the alarm over a renewed Republican push to slash Medicaid spending, warning that the consequences will be devastating—particularly for children, low-income families, and Americans living with disabilities.
At the center of the outcry is New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who did not mince words when she appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation this past Sunday. “People will die. Children will die,” she said, responding to congressional Republicans' plan to gut Medicaid as part of an effort to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Lujan Grisham, drawing on her own state’s experience, said the long-term fallout of gutting behavioral health spending years ago in New Mexico was catastrophic. “Providers left. Contractors left. People don’t have access. People died,” she said.
“More drug abuse. More drug addiction. More behavioral health high-risk issues. It is a disaster.” She added that more than a decade later, New Mexico is still struggling to rebuild the infrastructure that was dismantled in the name of austerity.
The current Republican plan proposes deep cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for extending former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax breaks for high-income households and corporations. Trump has also floated additional tax cuts as part of his reelection pitch, despite the growing deficit and the economic strain on working-class Americans.
Though Trump has alternated between claiming he will protect Medicaid and suggesting he’s open to changes, the GOP’s legislative actions tell a different story. House Republicans have already proposed over $880 billion in reductions to government programs under their purview—a move that would inevitably slash Medicaid at its core.
Governor Lujan Grisham wasn’t alone in warning about the consequences. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also weighed in over the weekend, calling the Republican plan an outright theft from working families.
She said, “They’re robbing people in order to hand it over to the rich. Medicaid is one of the largest insurers in the United States of America.” She cited recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyses that confirmed millions of Americans would lose coverage under the GOP's proposed restructuring.
Senator Bernie Sanders took to social media to denounce the Republican plan as a textbook case of oligarchy. “While planning massive cuts to Medicaid, the Republicans are proposing to provide another $235 billion in tax breaks to the top 0.2% of households through an increase in the estate tax exemption,” Sanders wrote. “The very rich get richer. The poor lose health care. Outrageous.”
While Trump has recently insisted, “I’m not cutting Medicaid,” in a televised interview, his rhetoric contrasts sharply with the fiscal agenda of his allies in Congress. The House GOP's budget blueprint, which aligns closely with Trump’s stated goals, includes the steep Medicaid reductions as part of a sweeping legislative package Trump has dubbed his “big, beautiful bill.”
That package centers around tax relief for corporations and high-income earners—a cornerstone of Trump’s economic philosophy since his first term.
The plan would not only extend but deepen Trump’s original 2017 tax law, a move economists say could further widen the wealth gap in the U.S. and reduce federal revenue by trillions over the next decade. In order to offset the cost, Republicans have targeted government programs like Medicaid, despite its role as a critical safety net that currently provides health insurance for over 80 million Americans.
Democrats argue that the cuts go far beyond politics—they threaten the lives of real people who depend on Medicaid for everything from routine doctor visits to life-saving medications and long-term care. Among those at greatest risk are children, low-income families, pregnant women, the elderly in nursing homes, and individuals with disabilities.
For families already struggling to make ends meet, losing access to Medicaid could mean making impossible choices between paying rent and getting a child the medical care they need. Hospitals and clinics that serve rural or underserved communities, where Medicaid is often the primary insurer, could be forced to shut their doors or cut services, further exacerbating existing disparities in care.
Health policy experts warn that cutting Medicaid on this scale would destabilize the healthcare system itself. Providers that rely on Medicaid reimbursement would see their budgets slashed, leading to staff layoffs, longer wait times, and diminished quality of care across the board. The ripple effects would hit not just patients but the entire healthcare economy, including jobs and service access in rural and urban communities alike.
What worries Democrats most is not just the magnitude of the cuts, but the callousness with which they’re being pushed. “Indiscriminately just tearing apart Medicaid means that you are going after hard-working Americans in favor of billionaires and corporations who don’t need and aren’t asking for this $1.5 trillion tax cut,” said Lujan Grisham. “This isn’t a trade-off. It’s a sacrifice. And the people being sacrificed are the sick, the poor, and the young.”
Polling shows that Medicaid remains one of the most popular government programs in the country, with broad bipartisan support among voters. But the political calculus inside the Republican Party appears to have shifted, with party leaders increasingly willing to stake their policy legacy on further enriching the wealthiest Americans—even at the cost of health security for tens of millions.
The pressure on Democrats now is twofold: first, to rally public opposition to the Medicaid cuts, and second, to block the legislation in Congress before it reaches the president’s desk. Progressive lawmakers have vowed to fight back, not only to protect the program, but to reframe the debate entirely—shifting the focus from what government should take away to what it should guarantee for all Americans.
“We’re not just going to stand by while they gut Medicaid,” said Sanders in another post. “We’re going to stand up for healthcare as a human right. And we’re going to hold every one of them accountable for the harm they are about to cause.”
With the 2024 election looming, the Medicaid fight is poised to become a central issue in the national conversation about healthcare, inequality, and the role of government. For millions of Americans, the outcome of that fight won’t just be political—it will be personal. And as Governor Lujan Grisham warned with grave clarity, the stakes could not be higher. “People will die. Children will die,” she said. “And that will be on the hands of those who voted for these cuts.”
