Josh Hawley draws a line on Medicaid cuts, urging GOP to follow Trump’s lead

Senator Josh Hawley Again he drew boundaries in the sand about the reductions that proposed Medicaid benefits, warning his colleagues to follow the president. Donald Trump’s Lead and leave the widely used health care program.

The Republican-led Senate committee has been spending the past few weeks. House GOP We went ahead with the President’s “Big Beautiful Bill” version and prepared our own tweaks to the huge bill, but much of the focus was on work being carried out by the Senate Finance Committee.

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The panel responsible for healthcare, taxes and other policy provisions is set to release chunks of the budget adjustment package Tuesday afternoon. In particular, the Medicaid provisions by the House GOP were a sticking point for a small Senate Republican group.

What will they change? The Senate It may appear that aspects of the bill could jump or stall the momentum of the large legislative package in the upper chamber.

Hawley, R-Mo, is one of that cohort, and has long been candid in his position that he will not support the package if Senate Republicans create a version of the “big beautiful bill” of the president that benefits from his constituents. However, his vision for Medicaid clashes with the Fiscal Hawks, who are seeking deeper spending cuts.

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One of his main arguments is to hear what Trump wants to do.

“This is something I keep talking to my colleagues,” he said. “Would you like to hear from the election-winning man who asked me and said he didn’t want to cut Medicaid benefits?

The lawmakers said at a press conference on Friday that he discussed the inclusion of his Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which provides compensation for “big beautiful bills” to those exposed to nuclear waste.

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Holy said the addition was certainly a sweetener for his support given that the measure was his “legislative priority for two years.” Still, Medicaid is one of his top issues in the broader fight for reconciliation.

Lawmakers said there is no problem with some of the changes to Medicaid marquee that his House Republican counterparts had hoped for. Illegal immigration From benefits to eradicating waste, fraud and abuse from programs that serve tens of millions of Americans.

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However, he pointed out that around 1.3 million Missouri people rely on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), claiming that most are working.

“These are people who work, not people who sit around,” he said. “Because they can’t afford private health insurance, they’re taking Medicaid and they don’t get it for work.”

“And I think it’s wrong to go to those people and say, ‘Well, you know you’re doing your best, you know you’re working so hard, but we’re going to take away your access to health care,” he continued.