House Republican: 'Hard decisions' needed on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that lawmakers will ultimately face tough choices on spending in next year's unified GOP government, suggesting cuts may be coming to social welfare programs.

"We're going to have to have some hard decisions. We got to bring the Democrats in to talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. There's hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved, and we know how to do it, we just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on," McCormick told Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo.

Democrats have been sounding the alarm that the GOP trifecta could endanger the social safety net as Republicans look to streamline government spending and offset their proposed tax cuts.

Asked if defense funding should also be cut, McCormick said he's "not a big fan of that."

"When you talk about cutting the budget, I'm all about that. And quite frankly, we need to," he added.

President-elect Trump has vowed not to touch entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, but he has made no such promise when it comes to Medicaid.

More than 88 million people, including roughly 40 million children, were enrolled in Medicaid as of September 2023, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It remains the largest source of federal funding for states.

Questions over potential budget cuts come as Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and environmental lawyer, to lead HHS. He also announced television’s Mehmet Oz as his pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is essentially the federal government’s insurance provider.

Oz has been a proponent of Medicare Advantage, a private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare that has come under scrutiny for overbilling Medicare, having limited provider networks and routinely denying care for patients. When he ran for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, he promoted a policy for expanding access to Medicare Advantage to any individual who wants to enroll.

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