Voters Oppose Funding Cuts for Federal Programs, Including Medicaid
By Abby Springs and Lew Blank
As a showdown in Congress over the debt ceiling looms, Republicans in the House and Senate have proposed cuts to essential government social programs, including Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. In particular, Medicaid could be under threat, as a majority of House Republicans support a budgetary plan to cap federal funding of the program. Today, over 84 million Americans rely on Medicaid for their healthcare — including millions of low-income children, adults, seniors, and disabled people.
New polling from Data for Progress finds that likely voters overwhelmingly want to increase or maintain federal funding for federal programs. Nearly half of all voters want to increase funding for Medicaid, and 89 percent believe that funding for the program should either be increased or remain the same. In contrast, only 7 percent of voters believe that Medicaid funding should be cut.
Republicans in Congress have proposed changes to Medicaid that would make the program more difficult to access, including cutting federal funding to Medicaid, ending Medicaid expansion, turning Medicaid into a block grant, and charging monthly premiums to recipients.
However, a majority of voters reject these proposals to cut Medicaid. When shown each of the proposals, a majority of voters say they would rather leave Medicaid as is than pursue Republicans’ proposed changes. No proposal has the support of more than 19 percent of likely voters.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid was expanded to include all adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. However, states must opt in to Medicaid expansion, and 11 states have refused to do so. Among likely voters who live in states without Medicaid expansion, 65 percent support implementing Medicaid expansion in their state. This includes 85 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and a majority of Republicans.
In addition, voters who live in states that have passed Medicaid expansion strongly support their state’s decision to expand the program. This includes over two-thirds of likely voters, including majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Congress enacted a requirement that Medicaid programs keep people continuously enrolled through the duration of the public health emergency. As a result, Americans weren’t kicked off Medicaid during the pandemic.
Recently, the Biden Administration determined that the coronavirus public health emergency will end on May 11, 2023. This means that in the coming months, up to 15 million Americans could lose their Medicaid coverage. Of these Americans, nearly half — 7 million — are projected to lose coverage despite being eligible. This is because even though they are eligible, they may be required to reapply for coverage, and could face long wait times and unnecessary paperwork requests.
We tested a variety of potential measures to help Medicaid enrollees stay covered once the public health emergency expires, and we find that all are highly popular across partisan lines. This includes improving communication to Medicaid enrollees (+76 points), collaborating with community organizations to reach out to enrollees (+69), allowing everyone who loses Medicaid coverage to enroll in a new subsidized plan (+65), allowing enrollees to renew coverage online and over the phone (+61), increasing staffing at Medicaid agencies (+61), allowing all enrollees to stay enrolled through 2024 (+44), and automatically renewing Medicaid enrollees based on existing data sources (+42).
Our polling clearly shows that voters across party lines reject efforts by the GOP to cut Medicaid. Nearly 9 in 10 voters want to either expand Medicaid funding or keep funding the same, while just 7 percent want to make cuts to the program. Voters reject all forms of cuts to Medicaid — including turning it into a block grant and charging monthly premiums to recipients — and strongly support Medicaid expansion. We also find that voters strongly back efforts to help Medicaid enrollees stay covered once the public health emergency expires.
These findings clearly show that if Republican legislators attempt to cut Medicaid, their efforts will be met by strong backlash from voters — including those within their own party.
Abby Springs (@abby_springs) is the press assistant at Data for Progress.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a polling analyst at Data for Progress.