Golden pushes House for up-or-down vote on Medicaid cuts
WASHINGTON — Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) has signed a discharge petition that, if successful, would force an up-or-down vote in the House to protect Medicaid and food assistance from budget cuts in the reconciliation process.
“While they debate the specifics, there’s no question the GOP plans to cut Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars,” Golden said. “Hundreds of thousands of my constituents use Medicaid for health care, while roughly one in six households use SNAP to help put food on the table. I oppose efforts to take their coverage away or make it harder to afford groceries.”
A discharge petition allows members of the House to force an up-or-down vote on a piece of legislation if a majority of members of Congress sign on. The underlying bill in this discharge petition, the Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP Act of 2025, would prohibit Congress from using the reconciliation process to cut benefits or remove individuals from Medicaid and SNAP.
The budget reconciliation instructions approved by the House and Senate require the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in spending — a target that will be impossible to reach without hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
On Wednesday, the CBO found that the several proposals for cutting Medicaid would result in millions of Americans losing health coverage. Cuts to Medicaid would hurt families in the 2nd Congressional District. Medicaid provides health coverage to 236,000 people in CD2 — more than one-third of the population — according to KFF.
The Medicaid cuts are part of the GOP’s plan to slash health care to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy while adding more than $ 7 trillion in new debt over the next decade.
Congressman Golden voted against the GOP’s reconciliation plan in February and again in April, and has been critical of efforts to undermine working families and the fiscal stability of the nation to extend tax cuts for the wealthy.
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