has again insisted that he won’t be touching Social Security benefits, alongside Medicare and Medicaid, and instead will be looking to remove “tremendous fraud” from the system.
Why It Matters
for tens of millions of Americans. An estimated 53 million retirees—roughly 16 percent of the population—were collecting monthly payments at the end of 2024.
Meanwhile, Medicaid is the largest program providing medical and health-related services to low-income individuals, and Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people aged 65 or older, and for some younger individuals with certain disabilities or conditions.
, ramping up the concerns that the new administration would make major cuts to the health program.
What To Know
, Trump said: “I’m not going to touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We’re going to get fraud out of there.”
He added that “everybody wants us to get the fraud out,” and that “we’re going to have tremendous growth.”
The president shared the clip of Sunday morning’s interview on his Truth Social account, and repeated his statement that Social Security and the federal health programs would not be touched.
The clip, after being posted on his account on Sunday evening, has since accumulated more than 14,500 likes.
in an interview in February.
In the interview with Hannity, he said: “Look, Social Security won’t be touched, other than if there’s fraud or something. It’s going to be strengthened. But it won’t be touched.”
last month.
However, while Trump has said on multiple occasions that Medicaid would be protected, analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released last week showed that the GOP’s budget goals could not be reached without reducing spending on Medicaid.
What People Are Saying
weren’t going to go after your Social Security—you thought wrong. They already are.”
wrote in a post on X: “Elon Musk’s plan to cut the Social Security Administration’s staff by 50 percent would cause 37,000 more Americans to die each year waiting to receive their disability benefits while the average wait time to collect these benefits would jump to 412 days. That is beyond unacceptable.”
wrote in a post on X: “Social Security waste is crushing taxpayers. Look at the numbers: millions lost to payments sent to deceased beneficiaries while field offices sit understaffed. The SSA’s own data shows 50-year staffing lows, yet bureaucrats defend keeping redundant locations open.
“Real reform means tracking every dollar and cutting administrative bloat. The facts are clear: consolidating offices and modernizing systems saves money that belongs in beneficiaries’ hands, not lost to inefficiency.”
What Happens Next
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, is currently identifying where it will need to cut $880 billion in spending over the next decade in order to hit the targets laid out in the House Republicans’ budget.
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