Dozens of protesters and disability advocates were arrested for disrupting a House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting to fine-tune legislation that includes Medicaid cuts.

The U.S. Capitol Police arrested 26 people for illegally demonstrating inside the Rayburn House Office Building, where the meeting was taking place.

The arrests came as lawmakers on the panel were beginning what is expected to be a marathon hearing to parse through the measure, which includes billions in cuts to Medicaid spending over the next decade and is expected to remove millions from government health care rolls.

Many of the protesters expressed fears that if the bill passed as is, they would be stripped of their health care coverage.

Danny Saenz, a disability advocate with disability rights group Adapt of Texas, flew from Austin, Texas, to demonstrate against the bill. He balked at the GOP’s messaging that the Medicaid portion of the bill was geared toward rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the program that is used by over 72 million Americans.

“It’s our lives,” he said.

The measure is part of the House GOP’s broader push to muscle through sweeping tax relief and spending cuts, border and defense funding, and energy policy changes through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process.

The committee was tasked with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts — the most out of any other House panel — to help pay for the tax portion of the broader reconciliation package.

While there are other components to the panel’s legislation, like rolling back regulations from the Inflation Reduction Act, that could help reach that target, cuts to Medicaid have been the focal point in the GOP’s hunt for savings and of criticism by Democrats.

Rep. Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, pitched the legislation as the product of diligent work to root out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid.

“Our priority remains the same, strengthen and sustain Medicaid for those whom the program was intended to serve, expectant mothers, people with disabilities and the elderly,” he said. 

Democrats have largely painted the GOP’s attempts at reforming the program as draconian efforts meant to strip Americans of their health insurance. 

Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the panel, said the bill had little to do with rooting out fraud and waste in the program and urged lawmakers to understand what the protesters were pushing against. 

“The people feel very strongly because they know they’re losing their healthcare, and the cruelty that comes from the Republican proposal that makes them lose their healthcare and their health insurance,” Mr. Pallone said. 

The Congressional Budget Office, in response to a request from Mr. Pallone and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, found that while the GOP’s bill would save $912 billion over the next decade, at least 8.6 million people would be booted from benefit rolls during that time. 

Republicans have viewed Medicaid as a fertile ground for deep spending cuts, particularly after federal spending was turbocharged with the ushering in of the Medicaid expansion population under the Affordable Care Act over a decade ago. 

But which proposals would be used, and what made it into the legislation that was unveiled over the weekend, could cause issues for the measure when it hits the House floor. 

Hardline Republicans were partial to policy changes that would have altered the formula that determines the federal-state cost sharing for Medicaid and enacting per capita caps that were ultimately taken off the table after moderate Republicans threatened to revolt against the bill. 

Many proposals that Republicans broadly championed made the cut, including work requirements for able-bodied adults that stipulate those who are enrolled need to have worked at least 80 hours per month; clawing back federal match money from states with migrants on the benefit rolls; preventing Medicaid funding from being used on “gender-affirming care”; and halting funding to Planned Parenthood, and requiring some members of the expansion population to re-enroll every six months.

Still, those changes may not be enough for some Republicans, like Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who feared the final, broader reconciliation product from the House would not do enough to get steep spending cuts that he and other fiscal hawks desire. 

“I remain open-minded because progress has been made based on our forceful efforts to force change,” Mr. Roy said on X. “But we cannot continue down the path we’ve been going down — and we will need SIGNIFICANT additional changes to garner my support.”

• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.