U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, R-New Orleans, and Dr. Rebekah Gee, the former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health from 2016 to 2020, field questions about possible changes to Medicaid during a March 18, 2025 town hall meeting in New Orleans.
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, R-New Orleans, and Dr. Rebekah Gee, the former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health from 2016 to 2020, field questions about possible changes to Medicaid during a March 18, 2025 town hall meeting in New Orleans.
WASHINGTON — Usually constituents are polite when attending town halls, using the events as opportunities to meet and discuss issues with their congressperson.
That changed recently, first for Republican representatives and now for Democratic members.
Scenes of participants booing and hurling invectives at GOP members of Congress over President Donald Trump’s policies, such as fears about the future of Medicaid and Social Security, have turned the once-staid affairs into shouting matches in many states including Nebraska, Michigan, and North Carolina — all shown on television.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, suggested GOP members avoid scheduling in-person town halls during last week’s congressional recess. Most followed his advice.
“They’re professional protesters,” Johnson said of the agitators at Republican district town halls.
Johnson provided no proof for his assertions, but Trump has made similar claims on social media.
The Democrats were delighted at the GOP withdrawal from the town hall scene and decided to accentuate the GOP’s arm’s-length approach.
That strategy hasn’t totally worked out for Democrats.
A Democrat-affiliated group erected billboards targeting six Republican House members in Colorado, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas and two in Virginia for voting to cut Medicaid.
The Washington Examiner reported Thursday that the billboards were taken down by Lamar Advertising Company, headquartered in Baton Rouge, after the National Republican Congressional Committee warned that the representatives had not voted to do away with Medicaid and saying so could make vendors liable to defamation claims.
And many Democratic representatives ran into voters outraged at representatives for not doing enough to oppose Trump’s policies. Democratic members were chastised at town halls in Maryland, Oregon, Arizona and other states.
So far, Louisiana town halls haven’t been as combative as elsewhere around the country.
Medicaid came up during a telephone town hall held by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, for his constituents in his Republican-majority congressional district. But most of the questions ranged from flood insurance to tax cuts for families and businesses.
Medicaid questions have become much more pointed at town halls in Democratic districts, said U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge.
“It’s more the anticipation of what’s going to happen. I think that’s where all the anxiety is coming from,” Fields said.
Trump and Johnson say Medicaid won’t be touched, except to correct for fraud and inefficiencies.
But House Republicans passed a framework bill that requires House committees to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts — $880 billion of which would come from the committee overseeing Medicaid.
Many town hall participants question whether the GOP can reach that goal without significantly shifting much of those costs from federal to state treasuries.
Healthcare accounts for $21.4 billion, or 43.4% of the state’s total budget. Louisiana taxpayers will be expected to put up $3.23 billion of that amount through the state general fund during the next fiscal year. Any decrease in federal funding would require the state to pay more — or services to be cut.
Nearly a third of Louisiana’s residents, 1.6 million people, are on Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income families.
Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, told a Tuesday night town hall he organized on the Dillard University campus in New Orleans that if Republicans cut Medicaid by $880 billion or anywhere close to that, then millions of Americans would lose their medical insurance, hospitals and nursing home would close, and health care would become “much worse for our children, the disabled, and the elderly who rely on these services. We cannot, we will not sit idly by.”
Carter sits on the House committee tasked with finding the budget cuts that might impact Medicaid.
But Medicaid was not the only worry among Carter’s constituents.
The Rev. Jeff Conner, a retired Methodist minister, asked Carter what could be done to stop the erroneous rhetoric that dead people are still receiving Social Security benefits.
Carter said he has been trying “to dispel the lies” through frequent interviews on television and on social media.
A participant named Keenan politely but pointedly criticized Democrats for not doing enough to oppose Trump policies.
“We have to use every tool in our arsenal,” Carter responded.
He added because Republicans have narrow majorities in the House and Senate and hold the White House, that Democrats must turn a handful of GOP representatives to their side, use parliamentary rules to slow legislative progress and go to the courts to challenge policies.
“I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting for 2026 (when a new Congress is scheduled to be elected). We have to live in 2025,” Carter said.
Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate.com.
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