3. Why reform is overdue

1. Enrollment ballooned to a record 91 million during COVID thanks to the freeze on eligibility checks; CMS itself projects a drop back to 79 million once the emergency unwinds. CMS

2. Program size: Medicaid now rivals Medicare, eating 18 % of all U.S. health spending—and crowding out everything from potholes to national defense. CMS

3. Error rate: One in twenty Medicaid dollars was paid improperly last year. If your local business bled 5 % at the cash register, you’d shut the register until you found the leak. 

4. The political chessboard

• Speaker Mike Johnson needs a win by Memorial Day to keep Trump’s tax package alive; the health savings are the pay‑fors. PBS

• Democrats’ line of attack (“people will die”) is recycled from the 2017 Obamacare repeal fight—but less potent when every poll shows voters resent work‑free welfare. 

5. Takeaways

• “This isn’t a cut; it’s a diet—Medicaid still gets fatter, just not morbidly obese.”

• “Two workdays a month isn’t cruelty; it’s common sense.”

• “$31 billion in annual payment errors = enough to give every registered nurse in America a $5,000 bonus—and we’re supposed to ignore it?”

• “If slowing growth by 8 % over a decade is ‘gutting care,’ hand me the scissors.”

6. Call to action

Congress will hold marathon mark‑ups this week. Flood the phone lines—especially if your rep sits on Energy & Commerce. Tell them you’re done underwriting able‑bodied idleness and bureaucratic leakage. Medicaid should be a trampoline, not a hammock.

Bookmark this post, share it, and tune in to the show tomorrow—because the legacy media will keep hyperventilating, and we’ll keep handing you the oxygen mask of truth.