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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
After voting for Trump's megabill, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley wants to prevent a key Medicaid cut from taking effect
HAZELWOOD, Mo. — Four days after President Donald Trump signed his 'big, beautiful bill' into law, one of the Republicans who voted for it wasn't interested in touting the measure's high-profile tax, immigration or health care provisions. Instead, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., held an event here Tuesday centered on a less-noticed part of the nearly 1,000-page bill: an expanded fund for victims of nuclear waste, a bipartisan issue he worked for years to get across the finish line. And when asked about the steep Medicaid cuts in the bill, Hawley continued to criticize them. Hawley said his 'goal' is to ensure the provider tax changes, which will limit state reimbursement for Medicaid, don't go into effect in Missouri in 2030 — even as he helped to pass a piece of legislation that will do just that. It illustrates the challenges Republicans face as they turn their attention to selling to the public the massive bill they've been working on for months, ahead of next year's midterm elections. 'I think that if Republicans don't come out strong and say we're going to protect rural hospitals, then, yeah, I think voters aren't going to like that,' Hawley told NBC News in an interview at St. Cin Park. 'The truth of the matter is, we shouldn't be cutting rural hospitals. I'm completely opposed to cutting rural hospitals period. I haven't changed my view on that one iota.' Hawley suggested he would work with Democrats to cut prescription drug pricing, a priority Trump has said he wants Congress to focus on, to pay for the tax cuts made permanent by the new law. Ultimately, Hawley — who is seen as a potential future presidential candidate — chose to stay in Trump's good graces and vote for the bill despite his reservations, while managing to score victories for his constituents. 'Gotta take the wins that you can,' Hawley told NBC News when asked about voting for a bill he admitted he didn't like. Defending his vote for the package that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected will cause nearly 12 million people to lose their health care coverage by 2034, Hawley said the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), as well as the rural hospital fund included in the bill at the eleventh hour to appease GOP holdouts in the Senate, would expand health care in Missouri. But for the hospitals and social safety net administrators in Missouri, the law's changes — even if not fully implemented until later — bring uncertainty to a community dependent on funding from expanded Medicaid access. The Missouri Hospital Association estimates the state will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the provider tax changes alone. Federally qualified health centers, which rely on government funding to function and provide health care to underserved populations, are already facing shortfalls and budget cuts. An administrator at such a health center in the rural Missouri Highlands told NBC News last month that the impacts from Trump's megabill will lead to death in her community. The issue is already impacting states across the country. Hundreds of rural hospitals could close and many more will lose billions of dollars in funding over the next decade, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. From a political standpoint, Republicans will need to defend policy choices that Democrats are already attacking as they seek to hold onto their congressional majorities in 2026. Hawley joined many GOP lawmakers in gaining private assurances from leadership early on and securing priorities in the sprawling legislation. He worked with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., 'early in the year' to attach RECA to the package. RECA, a federal law that provided financial compensation to individuals who developed certain diseases as a result of exposure to radiation, expired last year. 'For me, it was key to my vote,' Hawley said. The expanded fund will accept new claims from 'downwinders' and uranium workers until Dec. 31, 2027 and covers more cities and states, including zip codes in Missouri. Joining Hawley at the news conference Tuesday were advocates for victims of nuclear radiation from all over the country dating back to the Manhattan Project, including Sherrie Hanna from Prescott, Arizona. Hanna lost her father and her husband to cancers that were later linked to nuclear waste in the area. 'They both succumbed to painful deaths,' Hanna said. 'I know how important the RECA compensation is.' Hanna said she was 'devastated' when RECA expired in June 2024. 'I thought we would never get the program back. But we kept fighting.' The event was also bipartisan in nature: Hawley embraced former Democratic Rep. Cori Bush — who was a member of the progressive 'squad' in Congress — and showered her with praise. 'So Cori, thank you. We would not be here without you and your work,' Hawley said. Also joining Hawley was Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., who defended his support for the provision even as he and every other Democratic member of Congress voted against the Big Beautiful Bill. 'There are some concerns and issues that many of us have with this budgetary bill. But at the same time, the folks who have been waiting a long time for compensation, to be acknowledged for the pain and suffering, that's one thing that I can rejoice in,' Bell said. Some of the advocates who fought for RECA's passage acknowledged the bill's double-edged sword, like Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, who traveled from Arizona to praise Hawley's efforts in securing compensation for indigenous communities impacted by the government's nuclear programs. 'It's difficult to celebrate,' Nygren told NBC News, acknowledging the bill's negative consequences on renewable energy and health care coverage for the Navajo nation. 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The Independent
25-06-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Republicans are worried ‘too many Medicaid cuts' will derail Trump's ‘big, beautiful bill'
Senate Republicans might miss their self-imposed deadline to pass President Donald Trump's ' One Big, Beautiful Bill ' because they remain too divided over potential cuts to Medicaid. 'There's too many Medicaid cuts in there,' Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told The Independent. Hawley and other Republicans from states with large rural populations fear a proposed limit on states' ability to tax health care providers will force states to cut their Medicaid programs. The American Hospital Association has warned that cuts to Medicaid could be 'devastating' for rural hospitals, which typically have larger shares of patients without health insurance. Budget analysts argue that billions of dollars in reduced federal Medicaid spending could result in millions of uninsured Americans. Poll after poll shows that the bill remains incredibly unpopular among voters. But Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas blamed the press for the bill's unpopularity. 'They certainly have cornered the bill into a little piece,' Marshall told The Independent. 'So I think it's our job is to present it piece by piece and make our case to the American public.' Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee circulated a memo about a potential $15 billion stabilization fund for rural hospitals in an attempt to win over skeptical Republicans, Punchbowl News reported. But 'that wouldn't be sufficient,' Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told The Independent. Tillis, who faces a difficult re-election in a state Trump barely won, said Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from a state with a large rural population, was crafting another proposal 'more reflective of the need' of rural hospitals. Hawley said he wanted to take a look at the proposal before throwing his support behind it. 'I want to be sure that it's actually going to flow directly to rural hospitals,' he said. 'It's going to help hospitals in my state and replace a good portion of the funds that we're losing because of the provider tax, the ill-considered provider taxes.' Trump has said he wants the bill to be passed by the Fourth of July and called on Republicans to stay in Washington until the bill's passage. 'To my friends in the Senate, lock yourself in a room if you must, don't go home, and GET THE DEAL DONE THIS WEEK. Work with the House so they can pick it up, and pass it, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. 'NO ONE GOES ON VACATION UNTIL IT'S DONE.' The bill seeks to extend the 2017 tax cuts that Trump signed during his first term and increase spending for immigration enforcement, the military and oil exploration. Trump's biggest supporters in the Senate say they would vote for a motion to proceed. Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio told The Independent that he would vote on a motion to proceed on the bill so it could pass this weekend. 'Absolutely,' he said. 'Not just a 'yes' but a 'hell yes.'' But not everyone is as sure. 'Do we have a bill yet?' Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a major critic of the legislation, told The Independent. 'I think there's being pressure applied.' Republicans, who have only 53 seats in the Senate, plan to sidestep a Democratic filibuster by passing the bill using the reconciliation process, which allows a bill to pass with a simple majority if it relates to the budget. Stephen Miran, the Trump administration's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, addressed the criticisms from moderates in the Senate. 'We don't really have the in-depth analysis of Medicaid in this paper, or of health insurance and healthcare markets in this paper, it is a super important area we've done some work on in the past,' Miran told reporters. Miran said that failing to pass the bill could result in 9 million people losing their health insurance because of the economic consequences. 'We want to avoid the biggest tax hike in history,' Miran said. 'We want to avoid plunging the economy into a recession as a result thereof. And we want to avoid te approximately 9 million sort of just flat-out losses of health insurance across the economy that occurs as a result of that.' But even if Senate Republicans manage to pass the bill, it would still need to go back to the House of Representatives, where many GOP members might want to change significant parts of the legislation. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Republicans need to act quickly. 'One thing we can't do is punt,' he told The Independent.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Obscures Medicaid Cuts in Bid to Pass Massive Tax Bill
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump publicly resisted Medicaid cuts — until his budget director, Russell Vought, convinced the president that reductions to heath coverage for low-income people, embedded in the Republican tax bill, were just weeding out fraud and abuse. Where the Wild Children's Museums Are Billionaire Steve Cohen Wants NY to Expand Taxpayer-Backed Ferry The Global Struggle to Build Safer Cars At London's New Design Museum, Visitors Get Hands-On Access LA City Council Passes Budget That Trims Police, Fire Spending Trump has readily adopted that rhetoric, repeatedly declaring that his signature bill contains 'no cuts' to the social safety program, even as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates at least 7.6 million people would become uninsured if the bill takes effect. Republicans are betting they can win the semantic — and thus the political — battle over the future of Medicaid. At stake is a multi-trillion dollar tax bill, the cornerstone of Trump's economic agenda, which Republicans are relying on to counter the effects of tariffs that threaten to slow down economic growth. The Medicaid cuts of about $723 billion represent a major bill payer for GOP priorities, a significant negotiating point for fiscal hawks and a key way Republicans are paying for major tax cuts. But at least five senators have expressed reservations about the way the cuts could hit rural hospitals or working-class people. Trump can't lose more than three Republican senators and pass the measure. One former Trump official said the plan is to message Medicaid robustly this week, starting with the definition of 'cut.' 'Republicans just need to explain the policies they are pursuing. I don't think it will hurt them in the midterms,' said Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute who worked at the National Economic Council during the first Trump term. Yet Democrats view the cuts quite differently and see them as a welcome talking point in a year in which they've struggled to attack the president's agenda. Causing millions of Americans to lose health insurance while cutting taxes for businesses and wealthy people seems like an easy way to paint Republicans as out of touch. Rahm Emanuel, a former Democratic House lawmaker, former mayor of Chicago and former White House chief of staff who is considering running for president in 2028, said he'd contrast the boosts for billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook against children whose coverage could be at risk. 'Democrats should make this simple. Don't complicate it and don't go through the reimbursement rate,' Emanuel added. The Congressional Budget Office is slated to put out a more detailed analysis of the House bill on Wednesday. An analysis by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says, potentially, 15 million people could lose health coverage by 2034 under the House bill. People would lose Medicaid because that legislation tightens eligibility requirements for working adults and asks them to prove their eligibility more often. The bill does not extend premium tax credits, which helped people afford the cost of Obamacare, and it would raise the cost of doctor visits for Medicaid enrollees, among other changes. It would also ask states to pay for a greater share of its residents' Medicaid coverage and the administrative costs of the work requirements. Republicans are trying to win the Medicaid messaging wars by zeroing in on two changes, which their polling shows is palatable to a majority of Americans. This includes excluding immigrants legally in the US from Medicaid coverage (undocumented immigrants already cannot access Medicaid) and making sure that adults without disabilities work if they want to receive the federal health insurance program. In 2023, two-thirds of adults ages 19-64 on Medicaid already worked, while the remaining one-third of enrollees are in school, disabled or caring for a family member, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Much of the Republican polling on the issue from Paragon Health Institute, or from the Club for Growth, posits the Medicaid issue as one where Republicans are battling fraud or abuse within the system — and this has been the talking point that has resonated with Republican voters. 'President Trump pledged to protect and preserve Medicaid, and that's exactly what The One, Big, Beautiful Bill does by kicking illegal immigrants off of the program and implementing commonsense work requirements. Prioritizing welfare for illegal immigrants over American citizens is par for the course for Democrats, but it's not what the American people voted for,' White House Spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. One Trump adviser says Republican lawmakers remain nervous about the political pitfalls of Medicaid cuts, so the party should go on the offensive. Republicans have also played with the timing of when the work requirements would take effect in the states. In an earlier version of the House bill, they would not occur until 2029 — after Trump had left office. As it stands in the House bill, the Medicaid work requirements would start in December 2026 shortly after the midterm elections. Trump himself told House lawmakers not to touch the federal program when they visited the White House to discuss the overall tax bill. Part of his reluctance stemmed from polling that showed danger for Republicans in 2026 if they altered Medicaid, but the assurances of Vought and others' have helped the president support the House bill and its changes, according to Trump advisers. A senior administration official said Vought was one of several people pushing for the policies in the House bill because he knew it would help lawmakers pass it. It was approved by a narrow margin. Earlier: Trump Tax Bill Narrowly Passes House, Overcoming Infighting Trump is heavily involved in making sure Republican senators back the tax bill because he would like it to pass as early in the summer as possible, so he can show a major economic policy accomplishment for his first year back in office. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming said on Tuesday that Trump is 'very actively involved in the machinations in the Senate, while Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said, 'the disabled, pregnant women, seniors in nursing homes and all those people, there isn't a one of them that is going to lose Medicaid.' Michael Karpman, a principal research associate at the Urban Institute, emphasized that much of budget savings Republicans tout is expected to directly result from people losing health insurance coverage, based on states' past experiences implementing work requirements. He called budget savings 'a euphemism' on a call with reporters in May. 'This is kicking people out of the program who really rely on it,' Karpman said. --With assistance from Erik Wasson, Kailey Leinz and Rachel Cohrs Zhang. YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom Millions of Americans Are Obsessed With This Japanese Barbecue Sauce Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To Mark Zuckerberg Loves MAGA Now. Will MAGA Ever Love Him Back? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
The Independent
14-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Governor warns Pennsylvanians will lose health care, hospitals will close under GOP cuts to Medicaid
Gov. Josh Shapiro warned Wednesday that the Medicaid cuts Congress is considering would mean billions of dollars in lost federal aid to Pennsylvania, hundreds of thousands of people losing access to the health insurance program and more struggling rural hospitals shutting their doors. Shapiro, a Democrat who is considered a potential White House contender in 2028, said that if the cuts are made, the state would be unable to make up that amount of lost federal aid. 'I just need to stress: there is no back-filling at the state level,' Shapiro told WILK-FM radio in Wilkes-Barre. "There are no dollars available at the state level to make up for these cuts at the federal level. So if they cut someone off Medicaid, they're off. We will not be able to fix that for them.' Besides hundreds of thousands of people losing access to Medicaid in Pennsylvania, billions of dollars in funding cuts would accelerate the shuttering of rural hospitals 'which are teetering on the brink of closure,' Shapiro said. Pennsylvania is already facing a thorny situation with Medicaid costs. Shapiro's proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 seeks $2.5 billion more for Medicaid after budget-makers belatedly realized that the people remaining on Medicaid rolls after the COVID-19 pandemic are sicker than anticipated — and costlier to care for. The governor does have a cushion of about $10.5 billion in reserve, thanks to federal COVID-19 relief and inflation-juiced tax collections over the past few years. His administration is also trying to reduce the fast-rising amount Pennsylvania pays for popular GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound, as are a number of other states. Medicaid is a federal-state partnership that helps pay for the health care of low-income people of any age and long-term nursing care. There are 72 million enrollees nationwide, including 3 million in Pennsylvania, or almost one in four Pennsylvanians. Its annual cost is approaching $1 trillion, including about $50 billion in Pennsylvania. The precise contours of forthcoming cuts to Medicaid are being hammered out in the Republican-controlled U.S. House as part of a bill package that includes tax breaks of more than $5 trillion and sizable reductions in food stamps and programs to fight climate change. As part of it, Republicans are proposing cuts of nearly $800 billion over the decade to Medicaid. Estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office show that at least 7.6 million people could lose health insurance with the Medicaid cuts. Republicans say they are trying to make Medicaid work better by rooting out waste and inefficiencies. Shapiro disputed that, saying voting to cut Medicaid spending is "voting to cut their constituents off from lifesaving health care access.' ___
