07.01.2025 / Statement

Families USA Slams Senate Vote for Big, Bad, Budget Betrayal

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, today released the following statement after Senate Republicans passed the big budget bill that guts funding for Medicaid, terminates health care coverage for 17 million Americans, increases health care costs and devastates our nation’s health care system. The bill now heads back to the House of Representatives, where it again faces an uncertain future. Both the House and Senate versions include hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the Medicaid program that would make it harder for millions of Americans to access the health care they need.

“Every Senator who voted in support of this big, bad budget bill should be ashamed of both the process and the policy. All Americans should remember this vote with horror about what the Senate is willing to do to our health coverage, our costs, and our care, all to give even bigger tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. Senators voted to push and price millions of Americans out of health coverage, to raise our costs, and to upend the health system on which we all rely. While the Senate managed to drag this disastrous bill across the finish line with backroom bullying and unseemly side deals for states, this ugly process produced an even uglier bill, historically unpopular with voters on both sides of the aisle — and for good reason.

“This bill betrays Americans who voted for affordability, not for a budget that would raise health costs in both public and private coverage. This bill betrays the promises made by the President and by Senators to not touch Medicaid or slash away at our health care system and social safety net. This will not just leave 17 million more Americans uninsured, but harm the health and well-being of everyone as it will throw the budgets of their home states into crisis, and wreak havoc on hospitals and providers across the country. These Senators will have to answer for this vote and the empty promises they made.

“This fight isn’t over. Many House Members raised significant alarms about the Senate version and now face a moment of truth. Will House Members vote for even more massive Medicaid cuts, and another million uninsured Americans? Will they just go along with even deeper cuts to the health systems in their state, further harming the rural hospitals, maternity wards, and nursing homes already on the brink? Even those who voted for a catastrophic House bill recognize they should step back from the steeper and meaner cuts in the Senate version. If these Members stick by their own words over the last couple of weeks, this Senate bill should be dead on arrival in the House.

“This coming House vote shouldn’t be about a President or a party, but about people, and whether they can get the care and coverage they need. We continue to join the entire health sector, of patients and providers and plans in every state, to work to defeat this big budget betrayal that will harm millions of Americans and devastate our nation’s health care system.”

For Families USA’s summary of the health provisions of earlier House and Senate versions of this budget bill, as well as several resources on the potential impacts of the budget bill, click here.