Trump Officials Are Doing Everything They Can To Obscure The Actual Fallout Of His Tax Bill

In interviews on Sunday, Trump officials did everything they could to downplay the Medicaid cuts in his massive tax bill, given the electoral backlash Republicans could face.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that Democrats were trying to “infantilize the poor” by raising concerns that new work requirements for Medicaid would be burdensome and result in people losing their benefits. And during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett denied that many people would lose health coverage at all. 

“There are no change in benefits. There’s a change in requirements to get the benefit,” said Bessent. “The idea that it’s going to cause a massive hemorrhaging of insurance doesn’t make a lot of sense to us,” said Hassett.

Trump officials’ efforts come as members of their own party have warned about the price the GOP could pay for this legislation in the 2026 midterms due to the popularity of Medicaid and the polarizing nature of the cuts. Work requirements are typically more popular, though support for them declines after people learn that most recipients are already working, and that these policies can increase administrative costs.

According to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the tax bill is set to have a devastating impact on as many as 11.8 million people, who could lose their health insurance. 

The newly established work requirements — which require many able-bodied adults to provide proof that they’re working, volunteering or going to school for 80 hours a month – are expected to push people who don’t meet these standards off these benefits and make it harder for people who do to prove their eligibility. That policy has some exemptions, including for parents of younger children, people with disabilities, and for pregnant people.

One major challenge raised by the new work requirements in the tax bill is that they will make it more complicated for recipients to access Medicaid by adding to the red tape people will have to go through to prove their eligibility. 

“While work requirements do not reliably increase employment, they do significantly increase the administrative burden and costs of applying for safety net programs,” a memo from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute previously explained. Gig economy workers who have unpredictable hours, as well as people who provide caregiving for adult family members, are also among those who might not meet the work requirements.

Bessent countered that he believed that “poor people…have agency” and that to ask them to “register twice a year for these benefits is not a burden.”

People could also lose coverage under Affordable Care Act plans because pandemic-era subsidies that help cover the cost of insurance plans are set to expire, though they could still be renewed by the end of the year. “The bill would [also] increase [ACA] verification requirements and would effectively end automatic reenrollment,” both factors that would make it harder to get and keep coverage, CNN reports.

Hassett dodged a question on the subsidies during his appearance on “Face the Nation” and went on a tangent about the taxes that hospitals face.

“I think nobody’s going to lose their insurance,” he concluded despite the analysis that suggests otherwise.