Donald Trump publicly resisted Medicaid cuts — until his budget director, Russell Vought, convinced the president that reductions to heath coverage for low-income people, embedded in the Republican tax bill, were just weeding out fraud and abuse. Trump has readily adopted that rhetoric, repeatedly declaring that his signature bill contains 'no cuts' to the social safety program, even as the non-partisan CBO estimates at least 7.6 million people would become uninsured if the bill takes effect. Republicans are betting they can win the semantic — and thus the political — battle over the future of Medicaid.
