Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., blasted his party’s sweeping budget bill Tuesday, cautioning Republican colleagues that cuts to Medicaid could lose them majorities in both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterms.
Tillis equated the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ to the Republicans’ version of Obamacare, which cost Democrats big losses in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The North Carolina senator, who is up for reelection next year, said in a GOP luncheon Tuesday that his state would lose $39 billion in federal Medicaid funding if the Senate’s version of the bill is passed, risking coverage for 600,000 recipients in his state.
Tillis is part of a growing number of Republican senators to voice their opposition to the legislation. Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have also criticized the bill because of provisions proposed by the Senate Finance Committee last week which threaten deep cuts to Medicaid in their respective states.
The Senate Finance Committee’s text includes hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of cuts to Medicaid, acting as a major cost cutter to fund key parts of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda. The Senate’s bill goes deeper than the House-passed version, tightening eligibility and work requirements for Medicaid recipients.
Tillis told colleagues Tuesday that working-class Trump voters will suffer the most from these proposed cuts. He argued that these voters will be consequential to Republicans keeping control of Congress in the midterms next year.
Senate Republicans are facing a time crunch to finalize their version of the bill and pass it back over to the House before their self-imposed deadline of July 4.
With Independence Day quickly approaching, Trump urged the Senate to continue working despite internal divisions, telling Republicans to “lock yourself in a room if you must.”
Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled that the House might not break for their scheduled July 4 recess if necessary.
“If the Senate does its work on the timeline that we expect, we will do our work as well.” Johnson said Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-N.D., expressed optimism in his chamber’s schedule, saying the Senate is on track to begin voting on the budget package as early as Friday.
