Sen. Josh Hawley again drew a line in the sand on proposed cuts to Medicaid benefits, and warned his colleagues to follow President Donald Trump’s lead and leave the widely used healthcare program largely intact.
Republican-led Senate committees have spent the last few weeks since the House GOP advanced its version of the president’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ preparing their own tweaks to the colossal bill, but much of the focus has been on the work being carried out by the Senate Finance Committee.
The panel, which is responsible for health care, tax and other policy provisions, is expected to release its chunk of the budget reconciliation package Tuesday afternoon. House GOP-authored Medicaid provisions, in particular, have been a sticking point for a small group of Senate Republicans.
What those changes on the Senate side of the bill might look like could jump start or stall the momentum of the massive legislative package in the upper chamber.
Hawley, R-Mo, is among that cohort and has long been outspoken in his position that if Senate Republicans produce a version of the president’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ that strips benefits from his constituents, he won’t support the package. But his vision for Medicaid clashes with fiscal hawks who are in search of deeper spending cuts.
One of his main arguments is to listen to what Trump wants to do.
‘This is what I continue to tell my colleagues,’ he said. ‘Anybody who asks me and who’s interested is that, why don’t we just listen to the guy who won the election who said that he doesn’t want any Medicaid benefit cuts, he doesn’t want rural hospitals to close. He wants Medicare not to be touched at all.’
The lawmaker’s remarks came during a press call on Friday discussing the inclusion of his Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which provides compensation to people who have been exposed to nuclear waste, into the ‘big, beautiful bill.’
Hawley said the addition was certainly a sweetener for his support, considering that the measure has been his ‘leading legislative priority for two years now.’ Still, Medicaid is one of his top issues in the broader reconciliation fight.
The lawmaker said that he did not have a problem with some of the marquee changes to Medicaid that his House Republican counterparts wanted, including stricter work requirements, booting illegal immigrants from benefit rolls and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the program that serves tens of millions of Americans.
However, he noted that about 1.3 million Missourians rely on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and contended that most were working.
‘These are not people who are sitting around, these are people who are working,’ he said. ‘They’re on Medicaid because they cannot afford private health insurance, and they don’t get it on the job.’
‘And I just think it’s wrong to go to those people and say, ‘Well, you know, we know you’re doing the best, we know that you’re working hard, but we’re going to take away your healthcare access,’’ he continued.