‘All bets are off' if Trump cuts Medicaid, Mass. Senate budget boss warns

Yahoo

07-05-2025

As unenviable positions go, this one has to be right up there.
On Tuesday, as they rolled out a $61.3 billion, no-tax-hike budget for the new fiscal year that starts July 1, Democrats who control the state Senate had to contend with the very real possibility that the rug could be pulled out from under them at any second.
That's because the Trump administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill could still shut off the flow of billions of dollars in federal funding that provides a critical underpinning to programs across state government.
And that's nowhere more plain than in MassHealth, the massive state health care program, which accounts for 37% of total general fund spending in the Democrats' fiscal blueprint. It dwarfs other key sectors, including transportation (2%), public safety (3%) and even education (8%).
So, even with Medicaid squarely in Congress's crosshairs as it tries to drum up money for tax cuts, Senate budget-writers in the Bay State moved ahead with their spending plan, assuming the best, and decidedly preparing for the worst.
'We think it's prudent to move forward and to pass a budget based upon the facts that we know now, and then we'll deal with the future,' Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairperson Michael Rodriques, D-1st Bristol/Plymouth, said during a briefing in his State House Office on Tuesday morning.
'We hear from experts that there's no way [President Donald Trump] is going to touch Medicaid, because Medicaid reductions will hurt so-called red states more than us, because they have such a high percentage of [beneficiaries],' he mused.
And if Congress and the Republican White House do take a weed-whacker to Medicaid?
'We've just got to stay calm, stay focused, and be open-minded enough that we might be back at the table in a few months,' Rodriques, of Westport, said, referring to the supplemental budgets the Legislature frequently passes when cash runs short. He also ruled out dipping into the state's Rainy Day Fund just in case.
The spending plan unveiled Tuesday, an increase of $3.6 billion, or 6.3% above the current approved spending of $57.7 billion, pumps more money into public education, transportation and social services.
It also comes in below the $62 billion proposal that Democratic Gov. Maura Healey proposed earlier this year, and a smidge lower than the $61.4 billion spending blueprint the majority-Democrat House approved last week.
Rodriques dismissed suggestions that the Senate's plan, while lower than both those offered by Healey and the House, boosted spending too much at a time of acknowledged uncertainty.
'You know, think nursing homes, long-term care for seniors. Think health care for seniors, for [the] disabled, for low-income individuals,' he said. 'That's the driver ... unless we want to stop reducing services to our residents. I don't see any way that we [can]. You know, we've scrubbed it clean."
But if Trump and Republicans do slash funding, then 'all bets are off,' Rodriques warned.
In some ways, you could argue that there was nothing new under the sun on Tuesday as Rodriques, at one point joined by Senate President Karen E. Spilka, sketched out the Hobson's choice that policymakers could face on federal funding in the coming months.
It's the same one that faces Healey and the House as Beacon Hill moves into the thick of budget season.
It was nonetheless noteworthy to hear it discussed in such frank terms — and to have it juxtaposed against two pandemic-era budgets when Washington was firehosing federal assistance onto the states.
'Now the situation is how much Washington could hurt us and restrict us from providing what we think the citizens deserve,' Rodriques said.
Since his return to power in January, the Republican president has cast a long shadow over Massachusetts, from his battery of executive orders that touch nearly every part of public life, to his ongoing, pitched battle with Harvard University.
'We are in an uncertain moment — you all know this as well as I do," Spilka, of Ashland, said. 'Things change, not week to week, or even month to month, or day by day, it's hour to hour. So it's impossible to know the level of chaos that's going on, and we can only produce a budget based on what we do know.'
'And we do not know [whether] the federal government might decide to punish the state financially for being who we are. And that, to me, is among the worst punishments possible,' she continued. 'They may cut funding for being who we are as Massachusetts. [But] we will continue to protect our residents, defend our values and lead Massachusetts.'
Which brings us back to MassHealth, as Medicaid is known in Massachusetts. The sprawling program provides services to 2 million of the state's 7.1 million residents, state data show.
Of that number, 1.6 million are low- to moderate-income families, while another 500,000 beneficiaries are people living with disabilities and older adults.
On Capitol Hill, majority Republicans are walking a tight rope as they try to slash federal spending by $1.5 trillion, with hundreds of billions likely coming from Medicaid, as they seek to pay for Trump's tax cuts.
Republican leaders have denied that they'll cut one of the third-rail entitlement programs. But experts agree that it's tough to imagine them reaching their targets without cutting Medicaid, according to CBS News.
Back in Boston, with the Senate's budget unveiled and all the chess pieces on the board, there's not much more to do than to wait and see what happens next.
And anyway, 'we've got other things to move on to,' Rodriques said.
Read more analysis from John L. Micek
Read the original article on MassLive.