President Donald Trump’s proposed budget would slash Medicaid funding and cut support for major biomedical research programs at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
The budget blueprint drew condemnation from healthcare advocates and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Senate majority whip Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) reportedly said earlier this week that Medicaid cuts wouldn’t get through Congress.
“I think the tradition is presidents write budget proposals and that the Senate and the House substitute their own, and so I wouldn’t expect that would carry the day,” he told The Hill.
The potential $610 billion cut to Medicaid would add to the $839 billion cut proposed by the American Health Care Act that passed in the House earlier this month.
The proposal to slash Medicaid funding goes against Trump’s campaign promise to leave Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security funds untouched.
Among the more significant reductions proposed in Trump’s budget are an -19% cut to the National Cancer Institute and a -28% cut to spending on environmental health. The budget would also trim funding for the National Science Foundation by $776 million, or -11%.
According to the president’s proposal, the FDA would receive $1.89 billion in direct government funding. The 31% decrease would be offset by an increase of $1.3 billion in user fees.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the proposed $5.8 billion cut to NIH funding “penny-wise and pound-foolish”, according to Stat. Cole is the chair of the House health appropriations subcommittee.
The proposal did not include any direct cuts to Medicare.
CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden took to Twitter to respond to the administration’s proposal, calling it an “assault on science.”
Also today, Rep. Tom Macarthur (R-NJ) resigned as co-chairman of the so-called Tuesday Group, a caucus of moderate House Republicans, citing divisions over efforts to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, according to a report from Politico.
