Why is no one talking about the millions of Americans the House GOP wants to uninsure?

Let’s say you’re a House Republican in a losable district. And you’re also a member of the smallest House majority in a century. How do you announce that you’re planning on uninsuring millions, possibly tens of millions, of Americans to help “pay” for tax cuts for the wealthiest people alive—something you’d never vote for if Republicans had any votes to lose?

You go to Punchbowl News and get them to issue a press release like this:

And you hope that there’s no Andrew Sprung who knows how health care in America works to dig into the details to point out the horror of what these moderates Republicans in losable districts are proposing:

The ax is poised over Medicaid coverage for low-income adults. Repeal of the ACA’s 90% FMAP for this population will not instantly end all coverage for all adults with income below 138% FPL (the population currently covered by the expansion in the 40 states plus D.C. that have enacted it) — but no state will ultimately be able to afford that coverage without the FMAP.

What does that mean?

Republicans want to un-expand Medicaid

As Sprung has noted, the bulk of the Republican cuts target a group of Americans that Obamacare has been amazingly successful in expanding coverage to:

[Republicans are] gunning for a different group of enrollees: 20 million low-income adults rendered eligible by the ACA Medicaid expansion.

Sprung, who knows more about health care than I’ll ever learn and forget, argues that Democrats MUST focus on defending Medicaid expansion.

I’d say given the education problem we face given how much shit this Trump regime floods our brain with, I’d focus on the vast number of people Republicans want to uninsure and not, for instance, leave Republicans in Texas, Georgia, and Florida—who cruelly never expanded Medicaid—off the hook.

We need to let people know that Republicans want to go on an unisuring spree for the benefit of billionaires and almost no one else. And that spree won’t just devastate lives, but will decimate rural hospitals. What we need is clarity on just how many millions are at risk and precisely which hospitals.

This is a winnable fight

The Republicans who signed the letter that became a Punchbowl press release have identified themselves as targets. They are Reps. David Valadao (Calif.), Don Bacon (Neb.), Jeff Van Drew (N.J.), Rob Bresnahan (Pa.), Juan Ciscomani (Ariz.), Jen Kiggans (Va.), Young Kim (Calif.), Rob Wittman (Va.), Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.) and Jeff Hurd (Colo.).

Thanks to Charles Gaba at the irreplaceable ACASignups.net, we know exactly how many people in these members’ districts are being served to the underside of a bus.

We also know the pressure to deliver this massive win to Trump will be intense, and as Senator Lisa Murkowski noted, terrifying.

But we cannot allow Republicans in Congress to commit this injustice against our neighbors. Keep in mind, with all of Trump, Musk, and Bobby Jr.’s hacking away at our federal government, what’s coming in the next four years will probably make Covid seem like an Easter picnic. We need as many Americans as possible to remain insured and ready to survive these unnecessary disasters.