Advocacy groups associated with the left urge some Republicans Do not accompany a plan to reduce the benefits of health and food for the poor.
The lobbying campaign occurs while the Democrats are almost helpless to stop the law “One Big Beautiful Bill” – a package of 1,100 pages of the legislative priorities of Donald Trump, from the expulsion of migrants to the construction of a border wall. Republicans hold majorities in both the Chamber and the Senate.
“Pediatricians lose sleep at night during this program,” said Dr. Sue Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, during a press call on Tuesday.
“There will be short-term impacts where we really see hungry children and an impact on their growth trajectory,” she continued, “then medium-term impacts, in which you highlight the whole family and family must make decisions-” Do I pay for food? ” Do I pay for safe accommodation? Do I pay for visits to doctors? »»
Some of the most controversial provisions of the bill and which have careful examination Even Republicans, including the reduction of billions of dollars in food and health benefits to the poor to compensate for the new Trump programs and an extension of tax reductions to well -off Americans.
Although the “beautiful bill” has left the most controversial cuts on the table, it would always make major changes to the federal health and food aid programs called Medicaid and the additional nutrition assistance program (SNAP), known in a familiar manner as “food coupons”.
Medicaid is a public health insurance program for low income, the disabled and the elderly who ensure around 71 million Americans. In a single example of its impact, the program pays almost half of all births in the United States. Snap or “food coupons” offers additional liquidity for grocery store at 42 million low -income Americans, and is a rescue buoy for many to buy nutrients, which tend to be more expensive.
Tuesday, the non-partists Congress budget office (CBO) published his latest “score” of the invoice, noting that he would reduce $ 698 billion in Medicaid and $ 267 billion in food aid. At the same time, tax reductions would add 3.8 TN to national debt.
THE CBO too have found that changes would reduce the resources to the poorest 10% of the Americans by 4% and increase household resources to the richest of Americans of an almost equivalent amount, although the changes would differently differently in the time because the cuts take full effect in 2033.
An analysis of the non -partisan group The committee for a responsible federal budget found similar results and described the republican bill as a move “in the wrong budgetary direction” in a press release.
For Medicaid, cuts would be made by adding work requirements to the program, including a requirement that certain beneficiaries prove that they work when they apply – an obstacle to affirm that many groups would be difficult for sick Americans.
Multiple studies have shown that the addition of work requirements in Medicaid obliges the beneficiaries of the program, while doing little to push people in the labor market, the declared objective of the provision.
On Snap, the Republicans reduced the program by forcing states to pay between 5% and 25% of the advantages of the program. Such a change would represent the biggest cup in the history of the six decades in the program. Although the States divide the cost of administration of the program with the federal government, the authorities have always paid the total cost of benefits.
The Republicans holding the two chambers, the left -wing groups now seek to exploit the cracks in the republican unit, targeting in particular those of moderate districts.
On Wednesday, reproductive Freedom for All announced that it would buy advertisements attacking the Republicans in Arizona, Colorado, New York and Virginia for their support for the bill.
“As a infirmer living in southeast of Ohio Rural, I see friends, neighbors and family members who count on Medicaid for everything, treatment of cancer with vital medication,” said Rick Lucas, president and executive director of Ohio Nurses Association, in a press release. “These cuts will not hurt – they will kill.”
Although unrelated to the bill in the calendar, the proposed cuts came at the same time as major new studyThis found that the expansions of the Obama era of Medicaid have probably saved 27,000 lives since 2010.
The Republicans aim to pass the House bill through the Memorial Day – the next Monday vacation. The members pushed to do so, planning a meeting of the Rules Committee on Wednesday at 1 a.m., a move that the Democrats criticized as hearing the bill under the cover of the darkness.
“When I was a teenager, my deceased mother often said that nothing is going on after midnight,” said the classification rules committee, Brendan Boyle de Pennsylvania. “Now I know what she meant.”
However, the rift within the party cuts in both directions. Some hawks of the republican deficit arguments of social programs discounts do not go far or quickly. The divisions led Trump to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to urge the republican members of the room to “get the plane”, in the words of the republican house Dusty Johnson, of the southern Dakota.
Trump administration officials also continue to zealously defend the bill. The Secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, argued on Tuesday that: “There are only 8.5 million people affected by this … The other valid male workers who refuse to obtain a job, who even refuse to respect the minimum thresholds.”
The secretary said on several occasions that the cuts were to stop “waste, fraud and abuse”. The CBO which has found more than 13 million people would probably lose insurance in the coming years due to changes, including the losses of coverage of Obamacare.
Sharon Parrot, president of the left Center on budget and political priorities Said in a press call that the Republicans had “done everything they could to portray people injured as something other than what they are – people in our communities”.