A Republican Senator who called Medicaid cuts “both morally wrong and politically suicidal” before voting to drastically shrink the program is now trying to repeal the whopping budget reductions.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley was openly critical of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” because of provisions that proposed cuts of about $1 trillion to the program, which millions of low-income Americans rely on for affordable healthcare.
Despite this, the 45-year-old voted “yes” in the U.S. Senate on July 1, supporting the 51–50 passage of the legislative package that puts Medicaid on life support.
At the time, Hawley had pledged to work towards lessening the impact of the cuts after the bill passed. He’s now doing that by introducing new legislation “to prevent future Medicaid cuts.”
As well as securing funding for rural hospitals in Missouri, the legislation, which was introduced on Tuesday, seeks to reverse “future changes to Medicaid hospital funding.”
“President Trump has always said we have to protect Medicaid for working people. Now is the time to prevent any future cuts to Medicaid from going into effect,” Senator Hawley said, according to a press release.
“We should also increase our support for rural hospitals around the country. Under the recent reconciliation bill, Missouri will see an extra $1 billion for hospitals over the next four years. I want to see Medicaid reductions stopped and rural hospitals fully funded permanently.”
Hawley’s bill would get rid of rules that stop states from using taxes on health care providers to bring in more federal Medicaid money.
It would also remove a limit on how much control states have over setting payment rules for providers through private Medicaid plans.
Additionally, the Senator’s bill would double a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals by adding another $50 billion and extend the program from five years to ten. However, experts argue that this figure is not enough to allay the damage done by the “Big Beautiful Bill,” according to The Hill.
Hawley backed Trump’s bill after securing the inclusion of three Missouri-specific provisions, including funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to aid individuals in St. Louis affected by radioactive waste.
In the lead up to the July 1 vote on the bill, Hawley risked the president’s ire by trying to rally fellow Republicans into voting it down. He even wrote a guest essay for the New York Times titled “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,” he wrote.
