AJC’s Politically Georgia: “When launching a U.S. Senate campaign, it’s usually not a good idea to follow that up with a plan to cut more than $700 billion from a government-funded health insurance program that covers roughly 2 million of your would-be constituents.”

During a congressional hearing today, self-proclaimed “MAGA warrior” Buddy Carter will likely defend $880 billion in cuts as a sitting member of the committee that oversees Medicaid. Carter has even insisted the cuts should go even further, saying yesterday on the AJC’s Politically Georgia that he’d “actually like to see more” than $880 billion slashed in the Trump-backed Republican budget plan.

Carter has doubled and tripled down on the proposed cuts, claiming that “we are not kicking anyone off of Medicaid” – despite the fact that health policy experts agree that cuts to the health program are inevitable under the plan. 

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, the plan “could cause as many as 8.6 million people to lose their health insurance over the next decade” and has advocates concerned that it “could have big impacts for Georgia’s rural hospitals that rely on Medicaid for the bulk of their funding and are in danger of closing.”

“Georgians need to know that the same ‘MAGA warrior’ leading the charge to cut their Medicaid benefits is asking them for a promotion to the U.S. Senate,” said DPG Chair Charlie Bailey. “No matter how hard Buddy Carter tries to pander to Donald Trump, Georgians won’t be fooled by Carter working in lockstep with extreme party leaders to put critical programs like Medicaid on the chopping block.”