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House Republicans in Washington have unveiled the Medicaid-related portion of their “big, beautiful” tax and spending plan. We’ll break down the toplines and discuss how leaders in Connecticut might react this week. Plus, we’ll give you three reads to start your Monday.

Let’s dive in…

Medicaid cuts take shape, giving CT leaders a clearer picture of what lies ahead

Republicans in Washington are beginning to fill in the details of their “big, beautiful” plan to slash federal spending and cut taxes over the next decade – a plan that Connecticut’s Democratic leaders have been bracing for since President Donald Trump returned to office in January.

Late Sunday evening, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives rolled out the Medicaid-related portions of their budget reconciliation package.

The Wall Street Journal reports the bill “includes some of the changes Republicans have weighed for Medicaid, including work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. But it doesn’t lower the minimum share the federal government contributes to Medicaid in each state, cap per-person federal spending in the program or other steps some spending hawks sought.”

The Republican chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, wrote in an op-ed that his party’s plan “preserves and strengthens Medicaid for children, mothers, people with disabilities and the elderly — for whom the program was designed.”

Those words will be of little comfort to Connecticut’s leading Democrats who will likely hold up an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that says the ten-year spending plan “would reduce the number of people with health insurance by at least 8.6 million in 2034.” 

Under a budget framework that the House Republican caucus signed-off on earlier this year, the Energy and Commerce Committee had been tasked with finding $880 billion worth of cuts over the next decade. Under the plan released on Sunday, the CBO estimated that the healthcare-related elements of the committee’s spending proposal would reduce the deficit by $715 billion in the next ten years with nearly $200 billion in additional reductions being delivered by roll-backs of Biden-era energy programs.

In the coming days, policymakers in Connecticut will scramble to digest the specific impacts of the House Republicans’ proposal on the state. For months, leading Democrats have been sounding the alarm over impending cuts to the social safety net and made moves to preempt Washington Republicans. The approach advocated for by state House Speaker Matt Ritter and State Senate President Martin Looney calls on the state to press the “pause” button on the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax revenues into the under-funded coffers of the public employee pension system. The plan proposed by legislative Democrats diverts $700 million into a new budget reserve fund that would be available to offset federal cuts.

On the other side of the aisle, legislative Republicans have decried the idea that the state should depart from its regime of budget guardrails in order to respond to cuts from Washington. Publicly, the two principal Republican leaders in the state legislature have consistently answered questions about Medicaid cuts with a line that essentially goes, “We haven’t seen anything specific yet, so why bust through the guardrails now?”

The release of the text of the House Republicans’ Medicaid spending plan will challenge the credibility of that response, even if the final reconciliation bill falls short of the worst case scenarios that the state’s leading Democrats have warned of. Now, Connecticut Republicans will have the concrete details they’ve been waiting for.

As far as the substance of the plan goes, Republicans in Connecticut might find a lot to like. Republicans of all stripes have long supported work requirements for Medicaid – an idea that generally garners good marks in public opinion polling. Connecticut’s two leading Republicans, state House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora and State Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, have also vocally criticized a state program that provides health coverage to individuals in Connecticut without legal status. One section (Sec. 44111 on page 25 of the bill, if you’re curious) of the House Republicans’ plan takes aim at states that do just that.

Privately, many of Connecticut’s Republican legislators have expressed doubts that their counterparts in Washington will be able to follow through on the deep cuts that they laid out in their budget framework. Congressional Republicans are eyeing $1.5 trillion in total cuts over the next decade, including the hundreds of billions in reductions outlined in their new Medicaid bill. Fault lines between fiscal hawks and more moderate members of the House Republican caucus have already emerged in the debate over Medicaid funding.

For his part, Gov. Ned Lamont has at times echoed the rhetoric of both parties in the legislature. He’s always maintained that some sort of emergency fiscal action is on the table to respond to federal cuts. On the other hand, he’s also not signaled full support for the $700 million contingency plan put forth by legislative Democrats. Insiders have speculated that Lamont’s approach thus far is motivated by a desire to keep any extraordinary fiscal maneuvering firmly in the domain of the executive branch. But just as Harding and Candelora will now have to answer to the specifics of the GOP spending plan, so will the governor. What was once a known, or vaguely known, unknown is now coming into sharp focus.

Three reads to start your week

The Hartford Courant’s Ed Mahony reports that President Donald Trump has made his pick to lead the U.S. Attorney’s office in Connecticut. David X. Sullivan is reportedly poised to be sworn in as the state’s top federal law enforcement officer. Sullivan brings three decades of experience serving in the office he is now set to lead. He is also no stranger to the political arena. Sullivan was the Republican nominee in 2020 against Rep. Jahana Hayes, then a freshman Democrat who successfully defended her seat in the state’s 5th district.

Habemus receipts. Pope Leo XIV appears to be a fan of Sen. Chris Murphy. At least, that’s what a 2017 repost from the new pontiff’s X account would suggest. Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost retweeted a post from Sen. Murphy in the days following the mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert. "To my colleagues: your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers. None of this ends unless we do something to stop it," Murphy's tweet reads. NBC News conducted a review of the pope’s online presence, which included more than a few jabs of the political variety.

Field trip(s)? The vocal contingent of homeschooling families who flooded the Capitol last week to oppose new regulations on their chosen method of education told the CT Mirror’s Ginny Monk that they plan to show up at the legislature every day until the session ends. Pockets of pro-homeschool demonstrators were visible outside the state House chamber during session last week.

We’ll be back next week with another edition of the Tip Sheet!