“If Congress slashes Medicaid, Valley Republican David Valadao could be the loser” [The Fresno Bee]

“David Valadao is playing a risky game,” The Fresno Bee writes this morning.

After casting a deciding vote to gut Medicaid in order to fund trillions in tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, David Valadao is under increased scrutiny from his constituents and the local press.

After Valadao falsely claimed his vote would not touch Medicaid, a report from the nonpartisan CBO made clear what budget experts already said: Valadao’s partisan budget blueprint would jeopardize health coverage for hundreds of thousands of Central Valley families living in California’s 22nd Congressional District.

Read more from The Fresno Bee editorial below.

The Fresno Bee: If Congress slashes Medicaid, Valley Republican David Valadao could be the loser
By Tad Weber | March 11, 2025

• David Valadao is playing a risky game.

• The Republican congressman from Hanford who represents Kings and much of Kern and Tulare counties in the House of Representatives voted recently in favor of 2025 federal budget bill that is the start of a new tax-and-spend plan. To meet the goals of giving tax breaks that President Trump demands, while also cutting spending as far-right conservatives want, the majority Republicans in the House told a key committee to find $880 billion in cuts.

• Most analysts — including the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — believe that can only be done by making big reductions in Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government’s key health programs, as well as a children’s health initiative.

• Almost two-thirds of Valadao’s 22nd District relies on Medicaid for health care. His district is one of the most Medicaid-dependent in the nation.

• Given Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House, they needed nearly every member to support advancing the budget framework. In the end, including Valadao’s backing, House Republicans moved the budget forward on a 217-214 vote. Only one GOP member dissented. No Democrat supported the bill.

• Valadao knows well what is at stake. In 2018, he lost the district when Democrats campaigned on GOP efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He narrowly won it back two years later. 

• His seat has been considered a toss-up every time he has run for re-election, in large part because of the Democratic majority in the district’s registration.

• His constituents also understand the gravity of Valadao’s votes. In a recent gathering in Bakersfield, local nurse Marbella Calderon said cuts to Medicaid would leave her parents without health care while putting her out of work, The New York Times reported.

• “If you’re trying to cut Medicaid, a lot of these residents that we get in these nursing homes — a little more than half the nursing home will be empty,” she said. “And if we don’t have patients, we don’t have hours to give to employees.”

• What would her message be to Valadao? “You will be destroying the health care community by taking away Medicaid.”

• Valadao does not want to do that. But he will be under intense pressure to back any budget when it comes back for a final vote.

• Trump really wants to maintain tax cuts that were initiated in his first term; without extensions, they will expire at the end of this year. And conservative Republican members in the House are pushing hard to reduce federal spending. Slashing the medical programs could be the answer.

• But if Valadao again votes in favor of a budget that cuts Medicare and Medicaid, he will give a Democratic opponent an easy opening for attack in the 2026 midterm election.

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