In response to Senate Republicans prioritizing billionaire tax handouts over protecting Americans’ health care, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement:

“Senate Republicans are telling us exactly who they are and who they’re fighting for. Instead of lowering costs for working families, MAGA Republicans are pushing through Donald Trump’s overwhelmingly unpopular plans to gut health care for seniors, kids, and American families already struggling to make ends meet just to pay for a billionaire tax handout. Trump and the GOP’s priorities are clear: Make the rich richer and scam Americans out of their health care coverage.”

Senate Republicans refuse to protect Medicaid while vowing to fund Trump’s tax handouts to the ultra wealthy.

Sahil Kapur: “Chuck Schumer offered an amendment to the Republican budget resolution to prohibit tax cuts for the wealthy if even $1 is cut from Medicaid.

“It was rejected 49-51."

“Democrats unanimously voted YES, joined by Collins and Hawley. Other Republicans voted NO.”

Donald Trump has repeatedly proposed gutting Medicaid, which serves 79 million Americans, including many families in rural communities. 

KFF Health News: “Republicans in Washington say they plan to use funding cuts and regulatory changes to dramatically shrink Medicaid, the nearly $900-billion-a-year government health insurance program that, along with the related Children’s Health Insurance Program, serves about 79 million mostly low-income or disabled Americans. …

“Advocates for poor people fear GOP funding cuts will leave more Americans without insurance, making it harder for them to get care.

“If the GOP’s plans to shrink Medicaid are realized, Democrats and health experts say, low-income people forced to buy private insurance would face challenges paying monthly premiums and the large copayments and deductibles common to commercial plans that typically don’t exist in Medicaid.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “President Trump has made clear that his goal remains to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including its expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults, and to impose rigid caps on the federal government’s Medicaid spending.”

In his FY18, FY19, FY20, and FY21 budgets, Trump repeatedly proposed hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid.

ProPublica: “The Trump Administration Cracked Down on Medicaid. Kids Lost Insurance.”

Los Angeles Times: “Rebuffed by the courts in its previous efforts to gut Medicaid, the Trump administration teed up a new, far-reaching attack on the program that could affect the health of millions of low-income Americans.”

Georgetown University Center for Children and Families: “Cuts to Medicaid Will Shift Costs to Families, Providers and Will Be Especially Harmful to Rural Communities”

“Medicaid covers almost 80 million people in total – roughly four times as many people as covered by the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces and considerably more than the roughly 48 million seniors covered by Medicare.”

Republicans’ Medicaid cuts would be a disaster for our seniors, and could “force retirees out of nursing homes.”

New York Times: “Medicaid Cuts May Force Retirees Out of Nursing Homes”

Skilled Nursing News: “‘Devastating’: Medicaid Cuts in Republican Crosshairs, With Nursing Homes Seen as Bearing Major Pain”

“‘Any serious Medicaid cuts will have a major impact on long-term supports and services, broadly defined to include nursing homes, home health and personal care,’ [Brian] Ellsworth told Skilled Nursing News. ‘Those services comprise over a third of Medicaid spending nationally and would certainly be under the chopping block at the state level if serious cuts were made to Medicaid in Washington.’”

REMINDER: Trump’s tax scam gave massive handouts to the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working families and created new incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas.

Forbes: “Trump Tax Cuts Helped Billionaires Pay Less Taxes Than The Working Class In 2018”

Washington Post: “For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year”

CBS News: “Two years after Trump tax cuts, middle-class Americans are falling behind”

Washington Post Analysis: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. …

“The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.”

Washington Post: “Trump promised ‘America First’ would keep jobs here. But the tax plan might push them overseas.”