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Committee member challenges OMB over budget's health coverage cuts and 42% defense boost
Summary
During a House Budget Committee hearing, a committee member pressed OMB officials, citing CBO and Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that a recent budget package would add trillions to the national debt and eliminate health coverage for 15–17 million Americans while proposing a roughly $442 billion (about 42%) defense increase.
A member of the House Budget Committee pressed Office of Management and Budget officials during a hearing, saying a recent budget package would add more to the federal deficit than any law in U.S. history and could eliminate health coverage for roughly 15 to 17 million people, according to CBO and Kaiser Family Foundation estimates cited in the exchange.
The committee member said, "that single piece of legislation... adds more to our deficit and debt" and asserted it "eliminates healthcare coverage for more than 15 million Americans," noting the Kaiser Family Foundation estimate of about 17 million. The member challenged assertions that those losing coverage are primarily undocumented immigrants or fraudsters, asking, "You're gonna sit here with a straight face and say they're all illegals. They were all defrauding the system. That's actually your position."
An OMB official responded to a question about whether the administration had taken steps to transfer programs to states with a brief "No." The member pressed further, saying the President had recently stated that programs such as childcare, Medicaid and Medicare should be left to states; the member said that statement did not include the word "fraud" in the portion in front of them.
The committee member also raised funding priorities, saying the budget proposal seeks about a $442 billion increase in defense spending—characterized in the hearing as roughly a 42% boost over a prior baseline—and questioned how that increase would be reconciled with cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and childcare. "The idea that we're gonna pay for a 42% increase... and at the same time, cut Medicaid, Medicare, not pay for childcare... is a reflection of priorities that are out of whack," the member said.
Throughout the exchange the committee member criticized what they described as reliance on "static" scoring by budget analysts and urged consideration of dynamic effects—such as people returning to work and gaining employer-sponsored coverage—when evaluating long-term impacts.
The exchange ended when the member yielded back their time; the hearing record in this segment shows discussion and questioning but no formal vote or committee action recorded.
