Senate Democrats laid into President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax bill on Sunday, emphasizing the impact it is poised to make on millions of Americans on Medicaid.
“This Republican budget bill is an absolute disaster for the country, in particular for middle-class and poor people,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” noting that it seeks to pay for tax cuts by curbing spending on social programs.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) echoed these concerns in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” stressing that “Republicans are trying to push forward this big ugly bill that’s going to literally cut as many as 7 million Americans off of their health care.”
Murphy’s and Warnock’s statements come as Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill heads to the Senate, where it’s likely to face staunch Democratic opposition as well as GOP dissent. The bill slashes spending on social programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid, while proposing trillions in tax cuts and billions in investments to strengthen border security. According to an initial analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it would push 7.6 million people off Medicaid over 10 years, in part by making it more difficult to qualify for the program.
One way it does so is by imposing a new work requirement, which would force many able-bodied recipients to prove that they’ve worked, volunteered or attended a training program to obtain Medicaid coverage.
Warnock stressed that a similar policy in Georgia has added new barriers for people in need of health care. This “work reporting requirement is very good at kicking people off of their health care,” he said. “It’s not very good at incentivizing work at all.”
In May, House Republicans narrowly passed the bill by just one vote. It’ll take a simple majority — which Republicans have — to advance in the Senate, though some GOP lawmakers have said they’d like to make changes of their own to tax and Medicaid provisions.
GOP senators like Rick Scott (Fla.) have also raised concerns about how the bill could add to the federal debt, an issue Murphy alluded to as well on Sunday.
“It’s just unreal the amount of gaslighting this administration is doing,” Murphy said, while referring to the White House’s claims that the legislation won’t alter the deficit at all.
