The cost of government subsidies isn’t in just the subsidies or the administrative overhead alone. It’s in training people to rely on the government, in effectively subsidizing employers that pay less than a living wage, etc.

You're right that Medicaid subsidizes employers who pay poverty wages rely on taxpayers to provide healthcare for their workers instead of paying living wages themselves. But the solution isn't to eliminate Medicaid and leave workers with nothing. The solution is to raise the minimum wage or have universal healthcare so employers actually have to provide real benefits.

Most Medicaid recipients already work. They're not choosing dependency, they're working jobs that don't pay enough to afford healthcare. Taking away their healthcare doesn't suddenly make employers pay more, it just leaves workers desperate, which is exactly what those employers want.

You're essentially arguing we should eliminate the safety net that keeps our low-wage economy functioning. That would either force employers to pay living wages (unlikely) or create mass suffering among workers (more likely). Which outcome are you hoping for? Because right now it sounds like you'd rather have sick, desperate workers than challenge the employers who created this system.

> Most Medicaid recipients already work.

And most who don't can't. You included them earlier but they're worthy to keep in mind.

Seasonal workers are explicitly protected in the final bill as long as their average amount of work makes sense, so that argument is out.

Also, this "verify monthly" sounds like fearmongering. All I see is "requires individuals who are enrolled meet requirements for 1 or more months between the most recent eligibility redeterminations (at least twice per year)." Also: "Requires states to conduct eligibility redeterminations at least every 6 months for Medicaid expansion adults."

The Medicaid expansion is not everyone on Medicaid, just a subset who before expansion were presumed not to be entitled to a government subsidy since they don't have any dependents or any disability and could just work.

I do think it's probably not the worst thing if people who have no dependents or disability are motivated to go get a full-time job because it's kind of a hassle to have to prove eligibility.

The DNC is now advocating that taxpayers not only must pay for all the healthcare of people who don't want to work at all, but we also need to make it a maximally convenient experience. The reason Democrats keep losing elections is that they can't read the room -- most people who work and are not upper-middle-class levels of comfort don't like the emphasis on maximizing the comfort and convenience of groups like the voluntarily unemployed and undocumented immigrants when it comes at the expense of working taxpayers who follow the rules. This is why the Big Beautiful Bill passed: It actually throws a bone to people who work via things like tax breaks on overtime pay and tips, and via restoring the SALT exemption. Between these 3 policies, you can see a benefit to people across the wealth spectrum who share one thing in common: people who work hard. I know the Dems are still doing fine in rich areas, but there are two problems which are intertwined:

1. There aren't enough of those rich Democrats who just want to open the tax money spigot, the ones who wouldn't mind paying an extra $30,000 in taxes next year to put their money where their mouth is.

2. Even when there are enough to win, the rest of the population still pays most of the actual tax dollars and they are increasingly resentful of what they see as rich Democrats helping themselves (via the government) to everybody's money to bestow as favors on people who don't seem to need it. I know your heart is in the right place, but the policies are not connecting with the people, as evidenced by the fact that the Democrats keep losing ground among the non-wealthy working demographic (which, in the Democrat narrative, ought to be their strongest base).

Note: I certainly don't agree with everything in the "OBBB," but there are some good ideas in there.