Update (5/7/25): After this article was published, the Congressional Budget Office released a letter at the request of congressional Democrats estimating the likely effects of some of the proposed Republican cuts to Medicaid described below. The CBO, which offers nonpartisan analysis of federal spending, found that reducing the federal matching rate for Medicaid expansion enrollees from 90% to the rate used for other enrollees would result in 5.5 million people losing Medicaid coverage by 2034. If the federal government imposed per capita caps on all Medicaid recipients, CBO estimates that 5.8 million people would lose Medicaid coverage. If per capita caps were limited to the expansion population, CBO estimates that 3.3 million people would lose Medicaid coverage.   

Figures at Fox News and Fox Business, along with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board — three marquee properties in the Rupert Murdoch media empire — have called for drastic cuts to Medicaid to be included in the upcoming congressional Republican budget, which is also expected to extend President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

Murdoch’s outlets are specifically targeting people who gained access to Medicaid through the expansion of the Affordable Care Act, which includes more than 20 million people across 40 states and the District of Columbia.

Beginning in 2014, the ACA — often referred to as Obamacare — allowed states to opt-in to a federally subsidized expansion of Medicaid, which opened up the program to people making up to 138% of the federal poverty line. As a way to entice states to adopt the expansion, the federal government agreed to pay for 90% of the expenses of the new population. Federal spending traditionally covers between 50% and 77% of Medicaid costs, depending on the state.

Fox and The Wall Street Journal editorial board have criticized that reimbursement discrepancy, arguing that slashing coverage for the expansion population is a way to find the $880 billion in spending reductions congressional Republicans have demanded in their budget plans. One way to gut federal spending would be to implement a so-called per capita cap, which would limit federal reimbursements for the expansion population. Another option would be to eliminate the 90% federal reimbursement rate for that group. Both approaches would shift huge costs to the states and put the health insurance of the 20 million expansion enrollees at risk.

That’s exactly what Murdoch media is gunning for, even while posing as the true protectors of Medicaid.

On May 4, The Wall Street Journal editorial board argued for “imposing sanity on the way federal Medicaid money flows to the states” and that the “enhanced funding was a Democratic bribe” that “contradicted the founding purpose of Medicaid, which was to help the poor.”

“The GOP can make the strong and accurate argument that fixing this bias in federal payments is shoring up the program to better serve the vulnerable,” the editorial board added.

The editorial’s subheadline asked: “Do Republicans want to help pregnant women or able-bodied men?”

In fact, a 2021 review of medical research into the Medicaid expansion conducted by KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, concluded that “recent research indicates that expansion has improved measures including coverage rates before, during, and after pregnancy,” and “maternal mortality and infant health outcomes.”

The KFF research review additionally found the Medicaid expansion “improved overall mortality rates,” and had “largely positive impacts … on coverage and access to care among populations with cancer, chronic disease, and/or disabilities,” among other positive health outcomes.

On May 5, Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade echoed The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s argument, claiming, “Barack Obama and Joe Biden expanded the people who are eligible for Medicaid by so many that it's unaffordable, unsustainable.”

“So that’s where the big battle is going to be,” he added.

On April 25, Fox Business co-host Jackie DeAngelis told her audience that the Biden administration “put people on Medicaid that really aren’t supposed to be entitled to it.”

“Once you do that, then it seems like you're taking something away from somebody when you say, ‘You weren’t supposed to be on this program, and you don't get the benefit anymore,’ and that is when the Democrats start the outrage,” DeAngelis continued. (Oklahoma and Missouri adopted the expansion in 2021, and South Dakota and North Carolina did the same in 2023.)

Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer called for cuts to Medicaid in February, and again on April 11, when he appeared to criticize the expansion efforts.

“Go after the waste. Go after the fraud,” Fleischer said. “And yes, on Medicaid, even go after the excessive Medicaid programs.”

“Die on the hill of reducing government spending,” he added. “That’s the biggest difference between the parties.”

Contrary to the approach from Murdoch media, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has repeatedly acknowledged that a significant number of MAGA voters are on Medicaid. Despite this recognition, Bannon has still called for imposing work requirements on Medicaid users and for turning the program into a block grant — both of which would likely result in millions of people losing their coverage.

Previous Fox coverage misleadingly downplayed the risk that Trump and congressional Republicans pose to Medicaid. Now it seems that Murdoch’s outlets are sharpening their knives for the deep cuts they’d like to see congressional Republicans make at the expense of the health of the working class.