WASHINGTON — The majority of Americans announced Friday that Congress does not believe that health care programs for low-income individuals and families are important to the community.

A survey from KFF, The nonpartisan health research institute cut off responses from presidential candidates supported by voters during the November election.

The results show that there is a large portion of support for the program among Republicans, including those who supported President Donald Trump. But it also showed that Americans might support the change of How Medicaid is run.

A total of 82% of those voted said Congress should continue to do the same to Medicaid or increase it. Support was the highest among Democrats and independents, but 67% of Republicans who voted said they believe the program should have roughly the same government funding or increased.

The overwhelming number of people voted, 96%, said Medicaid is important to the community. 95% of Trump supporters said Medicaid is either very important or somewhat important.

Work requirements

The KFF poll also looked at how Americans feel about the changes that Congressional Republicans went to the program and could offset the rise in deficits expected to extend the 2017 tax cut.

Medicaid’s work requirements appear to be a popular policy choice among poll participants, with 62% supporting the requirements across political parties. Republicans held the largest share of respondents who support work requirements at 82%, followed by 60%, with Democrats 47%.

However, KFF also asked three specific questions about work requirements, showing the support variations that follow each.

A total of 32% of these votes voted on were, “What if we hear that most people in Medicaid are already working or that they are unable to work because their families are caring for members of their families, then we hear that such requirements put many people at risk of losing coverage due to the difficulty of certifying eligibility through the required documents?”

When asked – if you hear “imposing such a requirement will not significantly affect the share of working Medicaid enrollees, but will increase the state’s administrative costs to oversee program eligibility,” a total of 40% supported work requirements.

And 77% supported work requirements when asked. “What if we hear that by impose such a requirement, we can guarantee that Medicaid is reserved for groups such as seniors, disabled people, and low-income children?”

Federal vs. state funding

KFF asked those who voted whether they support reducing how much the federal government pays for the program compared to the amount they expect to pay themselves.

“As you may know, most states have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act,” the question begins. “Currently, the federal government will pay at least 90% of the costs of this expansion, and the state will pay the rest. There are proposals to significantly reduce the shares the federal government pays for this compensation. Do you support or oppose this reduction in federal contribution?”

A total of 59% of respondents opposed the proposal, but the majority of Republicans supported it, with 64% of them supporting the idea.

KFF asked different ways about federal game rates, and got different results each time.

Helping to change federal fees for states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA say, “If we hear that most states won’t make up for the remaining funds, what happens if we hear that many of the 20 million people covered by Medicaid will lose Medicaid coverage and become uninsured?”

Support rose to 49% when people voted were asked.

So far, a small consensus in Congress

Congressional Republicans are far from reaching an agreement on what they do with tax policies or how they will pay for some of the $4.5 trillion increase in the deficit they cause.

House Republican Budget resolution has been approved In late February, the Energy and Commerce Committee was proposed to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, and found $880 billion in savings over a 10-year budget window to help pay tax cuts.

GOP lawmakers and Trump have repeatedly said they won’t change Medicare, despite viewing Medicare as one of the places they find savings.

But Republicans should still take a few steps before the Medicaid changes become law.

Republicans want to use it A complex budget adjustment process Move their core policy goals to Congress without garnering democratic support to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

To unlock the settlement process, the House and Senate must agree to adopt the same budgetary resolution with the same settlement direction.

They haven’t done it yet.

The Senate is expected to take up the House budget resolution at some point, but it is unclear how quickly it will happen. When they do so, some GOP senators plan to make changes to the settlement direction in the House budget resolution and send it back to the other side of the Capitol for final approval.

By making precise changes to Senate Republicans, speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), determines whether speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can garner sufficient support to adopt the revised budget resolution within a razor-like majority.

The final step

After the House and Senate adopt the budget resolution, they can begin marking different sections of the bill of numerous committees that are expected to get orders for settlement.

All of these invoices are then combined into one settlement package and sent to the floor for votes. The House does not need to hold revised votes on the floor, but the Senate must be under a settlement process.

It could lead to some sort of ping-pong match between the two chambers when they try to understand the compromise in their campaign promises.

When Republicans last used the settlement process in 2017, they had a much wider margin in the House, which held 241 seats at that time.

Supporting the party’s centralists and far-right members of the country to spending cuts of potential hundreds of billions, including Medicaid, to support one sweep package that is expected to include tax cuts, has become more challenging this time, with the GOP holding just 218 seats at this time.

Last updated at 12:02 PM, March 7, 2025