On a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie, the Senate passed the much-debated budget bill, stripping $930 billion from Medicaid. Critics of the bill likened it to a “reverse Robin Hood”—robbing the poor of benefits to provide wealthy people with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next 5 years.
“The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits,” said Vance, a day before his tie-breaking vote. “The One Big Beautiful Bill fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass.”
“Everything else—the Congressional Budget Office score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions,” he wrote on X.
Only three Republican senators voted against the bill. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, who announced his retirement from Congress, said he was concerned about the cuts to Medicaid. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, were also against the bill, stating it would increase the federal deficit by $270 billion per year. Several other Republican senators expressed their concerns about the cuts to Medicaid but ultimately voted for the bill.
“Under this legislation—which cuts nearly $1 trillion from essential health programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program—millions of hard-working people will lose healthcare coverage and food assistance under the heavy burden of new punitive governmental red tape,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Besser referred to new work requirements, in which Medicaid and SNAP recipients would have to prove every 6 months that they have worked for at least 80 hours per month.
“By its very design, the bill will make our country sicker, put children at risk of going hungry, and make it harder for families to afford necessities—all to further enrich wealthy individuals and corporations,” said Besser. He noted that elderly people and disabled people, along with rural hospitals, would be most heavily impacted.
“It is unfathomable to see policymakers intentionally inflict so much damage on the people they represent,” said Besser.
UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguía said the bill would deeply harm working families, including folks who voted Trump into office. “Our families, and especially our children, will pay the price as the bill makes the largest cuts to health and food programs in U.S. history.”
“At a time when working families are scrambling to get by, they will lose critical support, pay more for everyday necessities, and see their communities ripped apart as the administration will use the funds to turbocharge its chaotic, malicious, and unlawful deportation machine,” said Murguia.
A study released by UnidosUS in May concluded that 45 percent of America’s children are poised to lose healthcare or food assistance as a result of the bill.