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CBO Confirms Trump Budget Law Will Trigger Over $500 Billion in Automatic Medicare Cuts

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Yves here. We have been telling readers in comments, who labor under the misapprehension that the big Trump budget bill cut only Medicaid, that it also whacked Medicare bigly. This development is yet another “Die faster!” scheme. It also points to the fecklessness of Team Dem, who couldn’t even rouse themselves to make a stink.

Twitter has oddly been missing in action. A few crumbs:

So the media has been missing in action. Nicely played, Team Trump.

By Brad Reed, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

A report released on Friday confirmed what many Democratic lawmakers have long been warning about: Republicans’ massive budget law will trigger significant cuts to Medicare.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the GOP’s budget package and acknowledged that it would be required to issue a sequestration, which is essentially a cancellation of budgetary resources.

The sequestration is required under the rules set out by the Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go Act of 2010 that requires spending cuts that are equal to a piece of legislation’s negative impact on the budget deficit.

The only way to avoid these cuts, said the CBO, would be for Congress to pass “subsequent legislation that would offset the deficit increase, waive the recordation of the bill’s effects on the scorecard, or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the statutory requirements.”

The CBO said that these cuts could take as much as $45 billion out of Medicare for fiscal year 2026. What’s more, the amount cut from Medicare would increase in every subsequent year, resulting in total cuts of as much as $536 billion between 2026 and 2034.

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, excoriated his Republican colleagues for passing a budget that will result in cuts to Medicare, a program that US President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged not to touch during the 2024 presidential campaign.

“For months now, I have been sounding the alarm on the devastating Medicare cuts caused by Trump’s Big Ugly Law,” he said. “Republicans knew their tax breaks for billionaires would force over half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts—and they did it anyway. American families simply cannot afford Donald Trump’s attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.”

The Republicans’ budget package also took a major ax to Medicaid, as it cut spending on the program by an estimated $1 trillion over the next decade. The CBO has already projected that millions of people will lose coverage.

Medicaid cuts are already having a negative impact. Several states have said that they are slashing rates paid to medical providers, which experts have said could result in several hospitals in these states going bankrupt given that many of them were in bad financial shape even before the GOP’s budget law passed last month.

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18 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    Regarding that Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go Act of 2010. Pretty sure that that was a Democrat initiative and I think that I remember Pelosi talking about it back then. So I checked Wikipedia and found this-

    ‘The Act was introduced in the House of Representatives on June 17, 2009, by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) and has been cosponsored by 169 of the 257 House Democrats. The Act had initially passed the House of Representatives 265–166 as a standalone bill in July 2009, then was attached in the Senate to legislation raising the debt limit to $14.3 trillion. A majority of 241 Democrats supported the bill while a majority of 153 Republicans opposed it.’

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_Pay-As-You-Go_Act_of_2010

    So thanks Obama and the Democrats.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Yep. I loathe liberal Democrats with the fire of 10,000 suns. At least Republicans are honest: Go die. And they’re feral. I respect that. Trump wants an imperial presidency, and he’s gonna get it. I can’t imagine a liberal Democrat going all-in for any professed principles.

        Democrats are the party that, in the middle of a Pandemic, opted to let Pandemic aid expire and doubled childhood poverty, rather than make these programs permanent, programs which achieved some of the ostensible aims of liberal Democrats, like reducing poverty and helping the poors.

        I can think of no better example of liberal Democrat duplicity and moral bankruptcy than doubling childhood poverty.

        1. Steve Sewall

          Amen to that, it sure hurts to have to say it, but Amen.

          At least Trump and the Reps are honest, as you say. And gotta respect honesty. WSJ just last week had op eds calling for cuts to so-called entitlements.

          Comments to this piece are extraordinary, dire but magnificent…

    2. Jason Boxman

      Yes, I frequently point out that this is the work of Obama and liberal Democrats. Obama might be the worst president in recent history. Rather than delivering on a mandate to course correct away from rapacious capitalism, Obama worked tirelessly to protect Wall Street.

      Thus, in America you basically have two choices

      – With lube
      – Without

      That’s it. Trump is demonstrating the “without”, but Obama’s “with” wasn’t any better.

      1. Nikkikat

        I have argued with my Democrat friends and family, just how horrible Obama was for the average American. He and his capitalist democrats did a lot of damage. Some worse than the GOP ever dreamed of doing. The affordable care act among some of the worst damage. From there, nothing was done to reform wallstreet. And he carried on as much war carnage as George Bush did. I agree obanm did a lot of damage.

        1. Glen

          I too regard Obama as the last best chance Americans had to change course away from a oligarchy controlled, financialized America. That’s obviously what he was voted in to do, but he betrayed America and went with Wall St and the banksters, and doubled down on all of W’s stupidity.

          This made the raiding of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security an inevitable outcome.

  2. JMH

    But $82,000,000 each day for Israel, $1,000,000,000 for defense and intelligence each year are untouchable. I get it. The priority is genocide, ethnic cleansing, Greater Israel, weapons that work occasionally, a navy that is largely obsolete, 17 or 19 or some other number (classified) of spies accomplish something but it’s classified. One question. If you cut Medicare won’t that cut the profits of the medical industry? However will their C-suites survive?

    The Rs are cruel. The Ds inept. DC is truly a Bubble and Echo Chamber. Donnie? Pathetic.

    1. Erstwhile

      I agree that the zionist entity is a waste of american resources, unless your goal is genocide, murder, and destruction, but what figures did you use to make the determination that the u.s. provides 82 million each day for just that purpose?

      1. David in Friday Harbor

        Trump has repeatedly and explicitly stated that he plans to, “get rid of the slums.” The Gaza genocide is simply a practice run for what’s coming soon to America. Cutting half a trillion off of Medicare is no different than the Revisionist Zionists targeting and leveling all of the hospitals in Gaza.

        I have been saying for years that 8 billion human lives in simultaneous being is beyond the carrying capacity of our planet but that there is no moral and ethical way to “cull the herd.” There are plenty of immoral and unethical ways to do it. Figure it out, people. It’s Lambert’s Second Rule of Neoliberalism in action…

        1. John Wright

          Sometimes I hear people assert we always need more immigrants to take care of the US elderly.

          There seems to be little extrapolation to a future of elderly immigrants who themselves will need care.

          One can suggest there is another way to solve the care of US elderly, that being to “encourage” their early exit.

          As I am in my 70’s, I’m not anxious for this to be implemented, but as the earth’s carrying capacity is exceeded, Gazafication of “the useless of the USA” may manifest.

          1. jsn

            They won’t have SS, Medicare or Medicaid so there’ll be no way for the Med IC to milk their dying days for profits, so they don’t matter.

            Capitalism really has become a death cult in the West.

  3. Morpheus

    Not to be pedantic, but the amount for defense is $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion), not $1,000,000,000 (one billion). Looks even more impressive/oppressive when written out.

    1. JCC

      First, regarding the montage posted on X, linked above, when will the so-called news, and our intentionally ignorant leadership, stop calling SS and Medicare “entitlements”?

      Second, (and not off topic – a wasted $1 Trillion), Wiliam Astore explains why these “entitlements” need to be scaled back. Our Politicians and the MIC are desperatly greedy for more money to keep our Perpetual War funded at the expense of domestic needs of the general Public.

      https://original.antiwar.com/william_astore/2025/08/06/an-ailing-flailing-failing-empire-lashes-out/

  4. Yaiyen

    One of the reasons i believe USA is finish is because its going only down hill. When democrats come back to power they will not fix these issues that’s what centrist is its stay the same. Like someone said ,best way to enjoy first world standard is move third world with a first world salary. 500k savings at 5% interest will easily accomplished this

  5. jsn

    So the whole Summit charade was to keep this story out of the news?

    I wonder what the entertainment will be when they hand over 401Ks to Private Equity and grant Cyrpto full Fed/Treasury backing?

    All fun and games at the end of the world…

  6. B Flat

    But why would Dems balk when they played wet nurse to Pelosi’s mutant baby, Pay Go? Now they’re not even pretending to pretend they are loyal opposition.

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