Nevada political action committee gets some right on Republican Sam Brown’s Medicaid stance

Republican Sam Brown, running against U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., in a competitive Senate race, is again facing attacks that claim he wants to cut federal programs. 

This time, Make the Road Nevada, a liberal political action committee, is thumping Brown, a retired U.S. Army captain, for wanting to cut Medicaid and Social Security.

"Jacky Rosen is fighting for Nevada — lowering healthcare costs and expanding affordable housing," the group said in an Oct. 28 X post. "Meanwhile, Sam Brown wants to cut Medicaid and Social Security. Nevada needs a leader who protects our future!"

We’ve checked a similar claim Rosen lobbed against Brown, saying he supported "massive cuts" to Social Security and Medicare. We rated that claim Mostly False.

But what about cuts to Medicaid?

Although the Rosen campaign’s claims about Social Security and Medicare skewed Brown’s positions, there’s a bit more truth to the Make the Road Nevada’s Medicaid assertion, mostly because Brown has supported a balanced budget amendment. 

Make the Road Nevada spokesperson Jose Rivera said in an email to PolitiFact his team was focused on get-out-the-vote efforts and he did not think he could make PolitiFact's Nov. 1 deadline to provide more information. 

Brown’s campaign did not respond to an email seeking comment. He said in a statement to the Nevada Current, a nonprofit news site, for a May 17 article, "I will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid."

The claim against Brown is well-documented, including an opposition research file on Brown’s positions posted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senate Democrats’ main political action committee. The publicly posted file includes identical excerpts to information  Rosen’s campaign provided for the Medicare and Social Security fact-check.

The research file points to Brown’s support for a balanced budget amendment, which economists say would lead to steep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The file also points to prior comments he made about wanting to eliminate federal agencies that have a duplicate state agency.

In February, Brown backed a 2018 plan from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that called for a 1% cut to federal spending across the board to balance the budget, according to a July 2024 article from the Nevada Current. Although Paul described the mix of cuts and spending freezes as minimal — around $13 billion — the Washington Post Fact Checker found that description misleading, noting Paul’s proposed cuts totaled trillions of dollars when accounting for increased participation in Social Security and Medicare as baby boomers retire, increased population and inflation.

Brown told the Current he supported a balanced budget amendment and thought Paul’s proposal was "a very reasonable place to start." 

Then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., promised a vote on a bill in 2023 balancing the budget within 10 years. McCarthy said he did not want cuts to defense, Social Security and Medicare.

An analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan budget-focused think tank, found balancing the budget by 2032 would require cutting 25% of federal spending. Excluding Social Security and Medicare for cuts would necessitate cutting 85% of the remaining budget. To achieve that, the federal government would need to cut Medicaid in half and end all other mandatory spending or eliminate Medicaid entirely.

Brown also proposed a plan during a May 9, 2022, Republican Senate primary debate to eliminate federal agencies that had a similar state agency. The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services oversees Medicaid in the state, making it a similar agency to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"So, I have a twofold plan here," Brown said. "One is start reducing the allocation of money to those federal departments and agencies and that will start cutting down our federal budget. And it also returns more control and power back to the states where we already have, for example a Department of Transportation, a Department of Education, a Department of Energy, environmental departments or agencies. At the end of the day, we reduce federal spending, but we also return power back to the states."

The moderator asked Brown specifically about Medicaid, and Brown answered, "A lot of that is mandatory spending right now. We can start with what I just described."

Brown did not respond when the Nevada Current pressed him for specifics on how a state-run Medicaid program would work, saying he would not cut Medicaid.

Featured Fact-check

Sam Brown

stated on October 21, 2024 in an X post

“Jacky Rosen voted to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports.”

Medicaid paid Nevada more than $8 billion over fiscal years 2022 and 2023 for services.

The opposition research file cites Brown’s comments on a 2022 proposal by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., that included automatically sunsetting federal legislation after five years, including Social Security and Medicaid, as an alternative agenda to that of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Democrats have sometimes exaggerated Republican support for Scott’s manifesto, though taken literally, the plan would sunset Medicaid unless it was specifically renewed. Scott eventually revised the plan in February 2023 to include a note saying his call to sunset federal legislation was never intended to apply to Social Security or Medicare, though did not specifically mention Medicaid.

Brown, speaking to the Spring Mountain Republican Women in Las Vegas two days after Scott released his plan, was captured on a recording saying he admired Scott for producing the plan. 

"I think I appreciate that he is trying to look forward, he is trying to cast a positive vision," Brown said. "One of the things, I think, that some of the Republican Party leaders have failed at is we have become labeled — and sometimes we do this to ourselves — is we become the party of 'No. Oh, no, we're not going to do that.’ We're the party of just rejecting policy instead of the party of projecting ideas. What Rick Scott has done, attempting to create a roadmap for a better America, is something that I admire as well."

Brown never mentioned specifics or outright endorsed Scott’s plan in the recording.

Make the Road Nevada said, "Sam Brown wants to cut Medicaid and Social Security."

Make the Road Nevada’s claim exaggerates Brown’s support for cutting Social Security. A Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee opposition research file, which has been the foundation for other attacks on Brown, based much of this on Brown supporting Scott’s plan, which called for sunsetting federal legislation every five years. Brown never said he supported Scott’s plan, only that he admired Scott’s trying to articulate a vision for the Republican Party. 

However, there is more truth to Make the Road Nevada’s claim about Medicaid. Brown supported across-the-board cuts to federal agencies through a balanced budget amendment. Balancing the federal budget is not as simple as Brown makes it sound.

Brown has said he will not cut Medicaid, but declined to specify a balanced budget amendment that would preserve Social Security and Medicare without cutting Medicaid. Federal budget analysts said to ensure no cuts to Social Security and Medicare — as Brown said he wants — Medicaid would need to be cut either in half or entirely. 

We rate the claim Half True.