Rep. Andy Barr has, predictably, gone all Sponge Bob Square Pants happy, happy joy, joy over House passage of the bunco game masquerading as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that will, inevitably, carry dire consequences for thousands of Kentuckians on the economic edge.
The One Big Beautiful Bill is the stupid name (and can we please, I’m begging you, quit giving embarrassing names to pieces of legislation?) accorded the budget reconciliation measure, now in the Senate’s hands, that, among other dubious features, extends tax cuts adopted during President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump’s first term in office while slashing funding for numerous social programs like Medicaid, which provides health coverage to about 72 million low-income and disabled people, and SNAP, the program that succeeded food stamps.
Appearing on Fox Business News on May 22, Barr, R-Lexington, promised that the package “will make America great again.”
Yeah, you bet.
“The winners are the people of Kentucky and the people of every state across this country who will now see their taxes reduced, the border secured, Medicaid more efficient, and right size for the people who need it,” Andy gushed, before delivering the regularly scheduled paean to the true love of his life, the man who may very well hold the fate of Barr’s political future in his hands.
“Make no mistake — this would not have happened without the leadership of the deal maker in chief, President Donald J. Trump.”
It’s amazing he got through saying that without choking up with emotion.
To be fair, Barr wasn’t the lone lawmaker in the Commonwealth’s delegation to support this mess. Only Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewsiCounty, who maintains the measure didn’t go far enough in addressing the national debt, voted in opposition.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said of the measure, “it’s wrong, it’s cruel.”
Beshear told reporters the massive Medicaid cuts could “lead to more Kentuckians not being able to see a doctor, not having health care coverage, less revenue to support our rural hospitals and health systems, and it’s going to leave more of our kids and seniors going hungry.”
But Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, the panel responsible for conjuring up the cuts to Medicaid, said, “This bill will provide vital support to communities and families across the country’’ and that it “strengthens Medicaid for those who need it most…”
Really? Let’s look.
First, let’s recall that TACO Trump has repeatedly assured one and all that he would not seek to cut the popular Medicaid program in the budgeting process. That, under any circumstance, must be regarded as a big, fat lie.
The budget reconciliation bill, which essentially sidesteps the traditional appropriations process because Congress is so bogged down in partisan squabbling, cuts federal Medicaid spending by $625 billion over the next 10 years, resulting in an estimated 7.6 million people losing their benefits over that same period, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It, among other things, establishes new work requirements, bans the use of Medicaid funds for gender-transition care and implements what are being called “eligibility and enrollment” rules that crate new address verification standards, greater provider screening requirements and penalties for states that offer coverage to undocumented migrants.
In a report issued by KyPolicy, produced by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, Dustin Pugel, the organization’s policy director, said the package if signed into law as is, would cost Kentucky $1.7 billion and terminate health coverage for as many as 345,000 people.
“These would be the biggest, most severe cuts in Medicaid’s history,” Pugel wrote.
Republican rationale for the cuts revolves around that old governmental canard of tackling “waste, fraud and abuse.” It’s hard to imagine that 7.6 million people over the next 10 years will be wasting, defrauding and abusing the system to the extent that they should be denied benefits. Yet, somehow, our boy Brett insists it “strengthens Medicaid for those who need in most.”
Really? Let’s see.
This One Big Beautiful Bill could prove to be a massive, ugly problem for Kentucky, a relatively poor state. A study from WalletHub, a personal economics website, found recently that based on several factors, like the percentage of state revenue that flows in from the federal government and how much the feds get from taxes on state residents, Kentucky ranks only behind Alaska as the most federally dependent state. A lot of that is because of the money it collects from Medicaid and SNAP. About 1.5 million people, 28 percent of the commonwealth’s population, are enrolled in Medicaid.
So, cuts obviously are going to be felt. Meanwhile, the geniuses running the state legislature will be of no help picking up the slack. Already leaning on the federal government to the nth degree, lawmakers this year once again cut the state income tax, resulting in an estimated $718 million reduction in general fund revenues when it is fully implemented.
It’s ridiculous on many levels. Medicaid is the primary source for nursing home funding, covering an average about 80 percent of the costs of care, according to a 2024 report from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, an advisory group for the Department of Health and Human Services. Funding cuts, should they make it through the Senate and land on Trump’s desk, could force states to cover a greater share of the costs and, as we’ve seen, Kentucky won’t have the wherewithal to deal with it.
It’s impossible to predict, of course, but some nursing homes may be forced to close.
And then there are rural hospitals that likewise depend on Medicaid to keep them afloat. There are 72 in Kentucky and many of them are already running on fumes. The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform reported that nine of the commonwealth’s rural hospitals are in immediate risk of closure and that was before the House passed almost $700 million in Medicaid cuts.
Think about how some poor farmer will prevail if the nearest hospital is an hour or more away from home About 18.3 percent of working age adults are enrolled in Medicaid nationwide and their access to care is threatened under the legislation.
Yet, and folks, this is mind-boggling, the Kentucky Hospital Association released a statement praising – yes, praising – Guthrie and the other dopes for supporting “delicately balanced legislation that will make sure the Medicaid program is sustainable and can continue to serve the people of Kentucky.”
“With Chairman Guthrie’s leadership and the support of the rest of the Kentucky delegation, the reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives preserves Medicaid in Kentucky so patients will be able to receive the care they need, when they need it,” according to the KHA.
With this statement, the KHA has taken pandering to a new, obsequious level, selling out low-income folks and small hospitals to gain some sort of favor with lawmakers gutting the Medicaid program. There’s simply no excuse for this oily reaction to devastating legislation and the organization has brought shame upon itself. How in the world do cuts equaling $625 billion make Medicaid sustainable?
One sector that stands to suffer the most is poor, pregnant women. Kentucky is among the national leaders in at least one health care category – maternal mortality.
According to the World Population Review, Kentucky ranked sixth among the 50 states in maternal mortality in the years 2018-2922, registering 34.6 deaths per 100,000 births. Most of those deaths are attributed to low-income women, many of whom are on Medicaid. Cutting funding for the program can only make matters worse.
So much for Republicans being the pro-life party.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are being equally dismissive of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food to low-income Americans, seeking to shift much of the funding burden to the states, who already have enough problems getting out of their own way.
In a guest column for The NKyTribune, Melissa McDonald, executive director of Feeding Kentucky, noted that 753,000 Kentuckians face hunger and don’t know where their next meal might be coming from. If the One Big Beautiful Bill is signed into law, she wrote, Kentucky “would be responsible for funding over $150 million annually (for SNAP) by 2028 just to maintain current benefit levels. With food insecurity projected to rise, that cost will likely increase even more.”
So, Barr, Guthrie and other House Republicans are washing their hands of the health care and hunger needs of many of their constituents. And why?
Well, congressional Republicans, who maintain a small House majority, are trying to reduce the federal budget by about $2 trillion, not in an effort to reduce the $37 trillion debt but to offset the cost of the tax cut bill Trump is demanding. Those cuts, according to the Congressional BudgeT Office, would add $2.3 trillion to the deficit and lawmakers want to offset a portion on the backs of poor folks and hungry children.
By the way, that tax cut bill? CBO claims most of the benefits fall to the already wealthy.
Big surprise.