Sanders rips Medicaid cuts in “Big Beautiful Bill” – The fate of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the tax cut and spending package being pursued by President Trump and Republican leaders in Congress, remains uncertain.
The effort received a setback on Friday, when the latest version failed to clear the House Budget Committee. Per NBC News, the committee’s Democrats joined “ a band of conservative hard-liners who are pushing for steeper spending cuts” to vote down the package.
“I have to now admonish my colleagues on this side of the aisle. This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said after the vote.
“That’s the truth. Deficits will go up in the first half of the 10-year budget window, and we all know it’s true. And we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t say that we’re doing something we’re not doing.”
Tax Cuts and Medicaid
The bill has a lot of moving parts, and the House leadership has had trouble coming up with a version that most of its caucus can support, with the party’s small majority in the House.
And that’s to say nothing of the question of whether a bill that passes the House can get through the Senate.
But at least two things seem to be part of every version of the bill: It will include a lot of tax cuts geared towards the wealthier end of the spectrum, and it will cut social programs, most notably Medicaid.
Per ABC News, in a story earlier this week, people in wheelchairs and others have shown up at hearings to protest the cuts, leading to 25 arrests at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The plan is to cut Medicaid, and the opposition from the right isn’t because the cuts are too steep, but rather because they are not steep enough.
“While the GOP plan proposes massive cuts to Medicaid, it does not include some of the most drastic cuts that Republican hardliners were pushing for, putting its passage in flux amid a conservative revolt,” ABC News said of the debate.
Sanders vs. Cuts
Speaking out forcefully against the cuts was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who claimed the cuts to Medicaid would lead to unnecessary death.
“Thirteen million Americans are going to lose their health insurance. And then on top of that, what the Republicans are proposing is a $35 co-payment for many Medicaid recipients,” Sanders said in an interview on MSNBC, as reported by The Hill.
“If you are making $16,000 a year, you know what? You can’t afford that 35 bucks, you are not going to go to the doctor. One of the outrageous dysfunctionalities of our current health care system is we lose some 70,000 people a year, [who] die because they don’t get to a doctor on time,” Sanders said on Chris Hayes’ show.
Dissent From the Right
Another senator spoke out against the Medicaid cuts- and this one was a Republican.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), earlier this week, assailed the Medicaid cuts as “morally wrong.”
Writing in an op-ed in the New York Times, Hawley came out strongly against a central plank of his own party’s legislative agenda.
“All of which means this: If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It’s that simple. And that pattern will replicate in states across the country,” Hawley wrote in the op-ed, with the headline “Josh Hawley: Don’t Cut Medicaid.”
“Republicans need to open their eyes: Our voters support social insurance programs. More than that, our voters depend on those programs. And there’s a reason for this that Republicans would do well to ponder. Our economy is increasingly unfriendly to working people and their families.”
About the Author
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter
