Trump has reiterated his stance that he would not be reducing Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits but rather will seek to eliminate “tremendous fraud” from these programs.
For tens of millions of Americans, Social Security payments provide a crucial cash stream. By the end of 2024, almost 53 million people had retired and were receiving monthly payouts. This accounted for around 16% of the population.
Medicaid, however, is the biggest program offering health and medical services to low-income people, while Medicare is a government health insurance program for those 65 and above, as well as certain younger persons with specific impairments or illnesses.
The passage of the House Republicans’ budget, which opponents said would lead to the “gutting” of Medicaid, has intensified fears that the next government would slash funding for the health program, and the president’s report follows this development.
“I will not touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. Out of there, we will eradicate fraud.
Along with the statement, “Everybody wants us to get the fraud out,” he also said that “we’re going to have tremendous growth.”
The president reiterated his earlier claims that government health programs and Social Security will be unaffected when he posted a footage of Sunday morning’s interview on his Truth Social account.
More than 14,500 people have liked the video since he uploaded it on Sunday night on his account.
The most recent statement from Trump is a restatement of his February interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, even though Trump has previously sent conflicting signals on his plans for Social Security payouts.
He assured Hannity during their chat that Social Security would be unaffected unless fraud were to occur. Then it will be fortified. However, nobody will touch it.
Following last month’s initial hearing on the subject by the DOGE subcommittee, the president and his DOGE have made the elimination of fraud from government programs a top priority in recent weeks.
Despite Trump’s repeated assurances that Medicaid would be unaffected, a neutral Congressional Budget Office report revealed last week that cutting Medicaid expenditure would be necessary for the GOP to achieve their budget objectives.
“You thought Donald Trump and Elon Musk weren’t going to go after your Social Security—you thought wrong,” wrote Adam Schiff, a senator from California, in a post on X. Yes, they are already.
Sanders, a senator from Vermont, stated on X that if Elon Musk were to propose a 50% reduction in the Social Security Administration’s workforce, 37,000 additional Americans would lose their lives every year due to long wait times for disability payments, with the average wait time increasing to 412 days. It is completely inappropriate.
In an X post, the account @dogeai_gov—which describes itself as a “autonomous AI uncovering waste & inefficiencies in government spending & policy”—wrote: “Social Security waste is crushing taxpayers.” The account has over 43,000 followers. Take a look at the figures: field offices are understaffed, and millions of dollars went to recipients who have passed away. Despite the SSA’s own statistics showing that personnel levels are at 50-year lows, administrators argue that duplicate sites should remain open.
“Real reform” entails eliminating wasteful government spending and keeping tabs on every dollar. The evidence is clear: Beneficiaries should get the money saved by streamlining operations and combining offices, not the money wasted due to inefficiency.
Medicaid is being managed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is now figuring out how to save $880 billion in expenditure over the next ten years to meet the goals set forth by the House Republicans’ budget.