Why Republicans are defending this lucrative Medicaid scam

Brett Arends's ROI

Guess who’s paying for the costs of hospitals and nursing homes in red states?

Last Updated: June 28, 2025 at 11:31 a.m. ET
First Published: June 27, 2025 at 3:56 p.m. ET

Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, let the cat out of the bag this week. He urged his fellow Republicans to protect the Medicaid “provider tax” boondoggle from proposed cuts in the GOP’s “big, beautiful” tax bill — because their own constituents were making so much money out of it. 

Tillis revealed that supposedly “conservative,” Republican-voting red states were using the Medicaid loophole to dump the costs of their hospitals and nursing homes on federal taxpayers — meaning the rest of us. The take totals billions of dollars a year, his analysis showed.