Ron Johnson believes he will get 'second bite of the apple' on Medicaid cuts - said White House promised him more cuts
Ron Johnson believes he will get ‘second bite of the apple’ on Medicaid cuts
The Wisconsin Republican said leadership and the White House promised him another chance to make dramatic reductions to the health safety net program.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) believes he has a commitment from the White House and Senate GOP leadership to get another chance to repeal an expansion of Medicaid offerings — a controversial proposal that failed to make it the final version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package.
“I think I pretty well have a commitment. They’re going to do that,” Johnson told reporters of the prospects that Republicans will reconsider a provision that would end the federal government’s 90 percent cost share of funding for new enrollees in states that expanded Medicaid under the Democrats’ 2010 health care law.
Johnson added that he ended up voting for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” largely because he was given assurances of the proposed cuts, despite his significant concerns about the deficit projections under the bill.
“Another reason why I definitely had to vote ‘yes,’ I would have just dealt myself out of being involved in that process. And I wanted to be highly involved in that process,” said Johnson of the potential to include the Medicaid expansion cost-sharing cuts in a second party-line bill later this year. “That’s where I gained a fair amount of confidence from the White House, the President, our leadership, that we will have a second bite of the apple.”
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/07/08/congress/ron-johnson-believes-he-will-get-second-bite-of-the-apple-on-medicaid-cuts-00443331