WA Dems slash Medicaid funds by $782 million

House Republican budget lead Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, blasted the move Monday, calling the cuts “astonishing” and “disgraceful.”

“Democrats didn’t just cut Medicaid,” Couture said. “They cut out the truth and blamed others.”

According to the state’s Office of Program Research, the 2025 budget passed by legislative Democrats and signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson slashed $782.6 million from Medicaid, including $446 million in federal funds and $336.5 million in state matching dollars. Nearly 95 percent of the cuts target general medical care, services for people with disabilities and seniors, and long-term care assistance.

Couture said Democrats tried to shift the blame by pointing to HR 1, a federal House Republican budget plan, with Gov. Ferguson warning it would cause vulnerable residents to lose coverage and even force hospital closures. But Couture argued the cuts were already baked into Washington’s state budget long before HR 1 took effect. “We have the receipts to prove it,” he said.

On The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI, Couture accused Democrats of gaslighting voters by claiming Republicans and Donald Trump wanted to slash safety-net programs, while Democrats in Olympia were already doing just that. “Remember the whole time the Democrats were saying that Donald Trump, the Republicans were gonna cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security? Turns out here in Washington, the Democrats were actually in the process of cutting over three-quarters of a billion dollars from Medicaid,” Couture said. “That wasn’t because of Donald Trump, and it wasn’t because of anything the Republicans did. It was because Bob Ferguson and the Democrats decided to do it.”

As a father of children with disabilities, Couture said he found the Medicaid reductions “totally unconscionable.” He noted that 95 percent of the cuts fell on core medical care, long-term care, and disability services. “They literally stole Medicaid money away from low-income people, the elderly, and people with disabilities, and then gave themselves enormous pay raises with it.”

The Medicaid cuts come on the heels of what Republicans are calling the most punishing tax package in Washington state history. In May, Gov. Ferguson signed into law the largest tax increase ever enacted in Washington, which includes sweeping new and expanded taxes affecting families, consumers, and businesses alike.

The $77.9 billion state operating budget for 2025–27 reflects an 8.2 percent increase in spending from the current budget cycle, despite Democratic claims of a $16 billion budget shortfall. It includes six significant tax hikes: increases to the sales tax, property taxes, gas tax, and business and occupation (B&O) tax, along with new fees on services ranging from childcare to fishing licenses.

Ferguson, who just two months earlier denounced new taxes that would hit working families, spent 90 minutes at a press conference explaining his reversal. “I said, hey, we're not going to be able to tax our way out of this. It became equally clear early on in the process that we're not going to cut our way out of it,” he said, emphasizing the need to protect core services.

Republicans proposed a balanced alternative budget with no tax increases and no cuts to core services, but Democrats rejected it.

Over the next four years, the new taxes are expected to raise $12.2 billion statewide, $9.3 billion at the state level and $2.9 billion in local taxes. By the fourth year, the tax burden is projected to cost the average family of four up to $2,000 annually.

Hospitals, already struggling after $4 billion in losses since 2021, are being squeezed on two fronts: the Medicaid cuts and new state-imposed hospital taxes. Together, those changes will cost $120 million in 2026, rising to $239 million annually by 2027. “This mix of cuts and taxes will impact all medical care in our state, not just Medicaid patients,” Couture warned.

On KVI, he noted that rural hospitals in particular face “a double whammy,” with program cuts, tax increases, and uncompensated care pressures from homelessness and addiction. “If you don’t have hospitals, the Medicaid really doesn’t matter because there’s nowhere for people to go,” he said.

Couture accused Democrats of diverting funds away from health care to pay for higher salaries for government employees and lawmakers themselves. “To make matters worse, Democrats cut Medicaid to help pay for bureaucrat pay raises and pay raises for themselves. That is unconscionable,” he said.

He also blasted the rushed, opaque budget process, saying Republicans were given only 24 hours to review the 1,364-page budget bill before it passed. Initially, Republicans estimated about $200 million in Medicaid reductions. But once the nonpartisan Office of Program Research completed a deeper analysis, the true figure came back more than three times higher, $782 million in just two years.

“That’s supreme gaslighting and total hypocrisy,” Couture said. “They thought they could get away with it because people weren’t paying attention. But now we have the numbers, and we’re not going to let them rewrite the truth.”

Couture called on Democrats to “end the hypocrisy, own the damage they’ve done, and fix it before it costs lives.” He added that House Republicans would continue working on a plan to reverse the cuts heading into the 2026 session.