House Republicans Are About to Deal a Massive Blow to the Working Class Folks Trump Swore to Protect

First of all, don't believe a word anyone says about this. From Senator Josh Hawley's op-ed in The New York Times:

Mr. Trump has promised working-class tax cuts and protection for working-class social insurance, such as Medicaid. But now a noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans—call it the party’s Wall Street wing—is urging Congress to ignore all that and get back to the old-time religion: corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance. This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.

There is no real "anti-corporate" strain of any significance running through the Republican Party, as much as Beltway brainacs want to believe there is. Even if there were, Senator Sprint wouldn't be part of it.

On Monday, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives finally rolled out the big, beautiful bill that they've crafted as a tribute to their president. (A little research would have told them that all they had to do was buy him a luxury airplane.) It contains drastic cuts to Medicaid which—and Hawley was right about this part—constitute political poison, in addition to being cruel to poorer citizens, which never has been a problem for Republicans before. However, it's not the Wall Street underground that's raising hell about these cuts. It's Hawley's co-religionists in the House's freedom caucus who are, and they're mad that the cuts are not more severe. Also from Politico:

Fierce pressure is now building from hospitals and clinics to the Medicaid cuts that have survived while conservative hard-liners are threatening to withhold their votes if they don’t get deeper trims to the safety-net program.

Whatever "compromise" emerges from the current mayhem is going to be on the issue of how much to cut and how many poor and working people to immiserate.

It adds up to a bumpy road ahead for the House Energy and Commerce Committee as it prepares for a marathon meeting to advance the legislation Tuesday afternoon. The proposal unveiled by Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) would not slash federal reimbursement rates in most cases or impose per-capita caps on payments to states, but it would likely force states to revamp how they finance their programs or cut benefits. A preliminary Congressional Budget Office estimate requested by Democrats found that more than 8.6 million people would go uninsured if the health portions of the GOP’s party-line package become law.

Once past the committee, however, the legislation faces a whirlwind of threats on the House floor, where opposition from any three Republican members could sink the entire sweeping package of tax cuts, border security enhancements, defense plus-ups and more. A key leader of the hard-right bloc, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), said in social media posts Monday that Guthrie’s proposal doesn’t offer “ANY transformative changes” to Medicaid, “among MANY [other] problems. We will need SIGNIFICANT additional changes to garner my support,” Roy added.

Meanwhile, the people on the front lines also are mobilizing. Hospital organizations have managed to temper (marginally) the severity of the cuts (for the moment), but they're staying on alert as the debate within the Republicans grinds on.

“Congressional Republicans and President Trump rightly pledged to protect Medicaid benefits and coverage — this bill fails that test,” said Chip Kahn, president of the Federation for American Hospitals, in a statement. “It is imperative Republicans go back to the drawing board; too many lives depend on it.” “Congress has a moral obligation to consider the harm that such disastrous cuts would have on America’s health safety net,” added Sister Mary Haddad, the Catholic Health Association CEO.

The Greater New York Hospital Association also slammed the bill, arguing in a statement that work requirements could lead to 1.6 million people to lose coverage in the state. The group also projected New York would lose $1.6 billion in federal funds from the cut to expansion funding for coverage of undocumented immigrants. New York is one of 14 states that use state funds to cover undocumented children.

You had to know undocumented minors were going to get thrown into the mix at some point. It's the new philosopher's stone in the Republican political alchemy. It changes the base metal into vile gold.