GOP Senate budget offers few Medicaid, Medicare details

Senate Republicans matched their House counterparts Wednesday by releasing a budget blueprint that eliminates deficit spending in a decade and repeals the Affordable Care Act. 

But the Senate's plan doesn't fully embrace controversial House proposals to overhaul Medicare and Medicaid. Instead, the Senate offers less detailed prescriptions for how it would go about culling costs from the healthcare coverage programs for the poor and elderly.

The Senate blueprint, unveiled by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), chair of the Budget Committee, would reduce anticipated spending under current law by $5.1 trillion through 2025. The bulk of those savings come from cutting healthcare programs. 

“Today, we begin the monumental task of confronting our nation's chronic overspending and exploding debt, which threatens each and every American," Enzi said in a statement. "Make no mistake, our fiscal outlook is grim and has been ignored for far too long." 

The Senate anticipates saving $2.1 billion by eliminating the coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act. That includes repealing the law's expansion of Medicaid eligibility to households with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level and jettisoning the subsidies available to low- and middle-income households to buy private plans through state and federal exchanges.