WASHINGTON – Having just announced he won’t seek reelection, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) felt free to speak his mind about the so-called Big Beautiful Bill on Sunday evening, and it wasn’t very nice.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Tillis said the bill will betray President Donald Trump’s promise not to cut Medicaid and that the president is being advised by “amateurs” who aren’t telling him the truth.
“I’m telling the president that you have been misinformed. You supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid,” Tillis said.
Tillis had announced his retirement just hours earlier following an attack from Trump after Tillis opposed the bill on a procedural vote in the Senate. His retirement announcement sets up a battleground state showdown and might give Democrats a decent chance of picking up a Senate seat.
Republicans are rushing to pass Trump’s bill by July Fourth. The legislation uses $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid to help pay for about $4 trillion in tax cuts favoring wealthy households. Several million fewer people would have Medicaid coverage if the bill becomes law.
Trump and other top Republicans have insisted the Medicaid cuts aren’t really cuts, that the bill only reduces “waste, fraud and abuse,” but Tillis offered a more truthful accounting, saying North Carolina would lose about $26 billion in Medicaid funding with more than half a million people losing health care coverage as a result.
Tillis has previously warned his colleagues about the politics of the bill’s Medicaid cuts. On Sunday night he likened the situation to when Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and then lost full control of Congress in that year’s midterm elections. Then-President Barack Obama had dubiously promised people would be able to keep their health insurance plans as a result of the law.
“Now, Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betraying a promise,” Tillis said. “It is inescapable that this bill, in its current form, will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet Room when I was there with [members of the Senate Finance Committee], where he said, we can go after waste, fraud and abuse on any programs.”
Tillis in particular is upset that the Senate version of the bill would force states to pare back taxes on big Medicaid providers, including hospitals and nursing homes, that they use to finance some of their portion of the cost of the state-federal health care program. Health care experts have warned the cuts could lead to hospital closures, especially in rural areas. (Tillis said he supports the largest Medicaid cut in the bill, a “work requirement” for nondisabled adults.)
On Monday, as senators prepared to vote on amendments to the bill, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised Tillis for having “the backbone” to condemn the legislation.
“Sen. Tillis spoke candidly. He was one of the few truth-tellers on the other side,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor. “The bill devastates his state, but make no mistake about it, it will devastate the states of almost every Republican here.”
Schumer speculated that “about half, maybe even more than half, of the Republicans in the Senate totally agree with him” but don’t have the courage to speak up.
If it passes the Senate, which seems likely, the bill still has to get through the House before it can go to Trump’s desk.
Jennifer Bendery contributed reporting.