People in wheelchairs are getting arrested right now in the Russell Senate Office Building in DC. They showed up to tell Congress not to cut their Medicaid, because they cant afford health care without it. If you look closely you can see the zip ties on their hands. #WeWontGetOverLosingMedicaid
— Aaron Black (@aaronblack.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 2:26 PM
===
We really would benefit from national attention shifting to how bad this bill is for the state of American health care.
Millions will lose care. Millions more will find it their costs increase and odious practices that deserve to be banned for good could come roaring back.— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 1:51 PM
…Medical bankruptcies, “job lock,” deferred treatment, the psychological agony of uninsurance—Obamacare made all of these problems much smaller. It has been a boon to American liberty. Democrats in 2009 and 2010 could have reduced the uninsured population to a similar degree without prohibiting the status quo barbarism: If they’d reduced the Medicare eligibility age, increased the income threshold for Medicaid, tweaked rules governing employer-sponsored insurance, it would have been a good bill, and reduced human suffering quite a lot, just as the ACA did. But there’d still be a hole in the center of our safety net large enough to swallow many lives; sick people left out of the incremental expansions would have been screwed.
So when Republicans began their most recent crusade against Medicaid, the affront did not feel quite as severe as when they went after pre-existing conditions protections per se. Mitch McConnell knows as well as anyone how hot the politics of health care legislation can get, and even he’s grown complacent.
“I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid,” he told Senate Republicans Tuesday. “But they’ll get over it.”…
That explains why he keeps lying about his party's intent to cut Medicaid
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha1.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 9:47 AM
With President Donald Trump’s July 4 deadline drawing near, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told POLITICO on Tuesday night he believes the Senate is “on a path” to start voting on the megabill Friday.
But he’s got several fires to put out first. For one, he’s under immense pressure to water down the Medicaid provisions the Senate GOP is counting on for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings.
Speaker Mike Johnson is warning in private that Senate Republicans could cost House Republicans their majority next year if they try to push through the deep Medicaid cuts in the current Senate version, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the matter.
That comes as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cautions GOP senators that those same cutbacks could become a political albatross for Republicans just as the Affordable Care Act was for Democrats…
“[Barack] Obama said … ‘if you like your health care you can keep it, if you like your doctor we can keep it,’ and yet we had several million people lose their health care,” the in-cycle senator told reporters Tuesday. “Here we’re saying [with] Medicaid, we’re going to hold people harmless, but we’re estimating” millions of people could lose coverage.
GOP leaders are trying to ease concerns by preparing to include a fund to help rural hospitals that could be harmed by the reductions, even as Thune insisted Tuesday “we like where we are.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who’s been pushing for the fund, said while that “helps lessen the impact,” she remains “concerned about the changes in the funding for Medicaid in general.”…
Nobody hates his own supporters more than Donald Trump.
— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 2:29 PM
…GOP lawmakers have also included provisions in their so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” to crack down on the health care provider tax that states charge health care providers to help fund Medicaid, particularly in rural areas. Under the new proposal, the federal government would limit reimbursement to states, with some conservatives citing “abuse” of the program by undocumented migrants in blue states.
A cap or freeze on that fee would cost rural hospitals, like the Hermann Area District Hospital, billions of dollars in funding, according to providers, physicians, hospital associations and even some Republican lawmakers. They include Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who argued the provision would “defund” rural hospitals.
Dr. Michael Rothermich, the chief of staff at the Hermann hospital, said it is already treading water with current funding levels…
The hospital has just three full-time physicians on staff to service patients in two counties, where 1 in 4 rely on Medicaid.
“There are fewer and fewer people to take care of it and fewer and fewer resources to try and do what we need to do to take care of people,” Rothermich said.
In southern Missouri, Karen White, the administrator for Missouri Highlands Health Care, said the new provisions could mean they need to prioritize which patients to care for.
“I think we will see loss of life, maybe not immediate, but if chronic conditions go untreated for an extended period of time, it does result in lower quality of life, less people working,” White said. “We’ve lost three hospitals in the last 10 years in our region, and that has left Missouri Highlands as the only form of health care.”
Missouri Highlands is a federally qualified health center, or FQHC — a community-based health care provider that relies on federal funding to operate. White said 46% of the population there is on Medicaid, and Missouri Highlands is the only health care provider in a three- to four-hour radius…
Baud
Stopped clock.
Hunter Gathers
Trump may hate his supporters but it is nothing compared to how much Trump’s supporters hate themselves.
JCJ
Always the fault of Democrats
Democrats in 2009 and 2010 could have reduced the uninsured population to a similar degree without prohibiting the status quo barbarism: If they’d reduced the Medicare eligibility age, increased the income threshold for Medicaid, tweaked rules governing employer-sponsored insurance, it would have been a good bill, and reduced human suffering quite a lot, just as the ACA did.
Republicans could also do this, but of course they won’t. Once again only Democrats are on the side of the people. Fat lot of good that does them in the eyes of the voters. Writers like this could use their platform to point out this problem
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Suzie Furrorbrows remains “concerned”.
Another day ending in ‘y’. She’ll vote for whatever if they need her vote.
gene108
McConnell is a cold calculating soulless human being, but he’s right. Republican voters will endure any amount of suffering to make sure their culture war priorities are met.
Even if Republicans gut Medicaid and allow coverage to be denied for pre-existing conditions, I doubt voters are going to care beyond the 2028 election. If Democrats win on this issue, by 2030 a “grassroots” right-wing backlash against Democrats trying to undo what Republicans have done will probably give Republicans control of Congress.
I’ve pretty much lost faith in the long term trajectory of this country. Too many voters will never be satisfied and vote in a perpetual state of backlash to whatever the status quo is or will not vote.
Baud
@JCJ:
That’s how they keep people down.
Sure Lurkalot
GOP Death Caucus, Anne Laurie? I give you the return of the lady with the crazy eyes:
Let’s blow up the world…wheeeee…yea Armageddon!
gene108
@JCJ:
I read that as instead of tinkering around the edges of existing insurance coverages, the Democrats went big with Obamacare to insure people who had no insurance.
Honestly, if the 10 states holding out against Medicaid expansion states, especially Texas and Florida, expanded Medicaid and worked to make sure their citizens are aware of the increased coverage, we’d be close to universal health insurance coverage.
As it is 92% of Americans have health insurance.
Edited for clarity.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
I wanted the rapture so we’d be rid of them.
PsiFighter37
I hope the Senate GOP cuts as much rural healthcare funding as possible. The bumfucks living in flyover country deserve what they voted for, good and hard.
Jeffro
@Sure Lurkalot: they can’t cope with the fact that they’re not living in The Most Important and/or End Times…they’re just living in…times, like the rest of us.
It’s vitally important to these people that they be there at the end of the world, even if they have to cause it to happen.
NotMax
@Sure Lurkalot
“We will all go simultaneous
When the air becomes uranious”
– Tom Lehrer
cain
@gene108: Which is precisely why we liberals need to take care of ourselves and fund ourselves.
Nothing would piss these people off more than if we built our own establishments.
I would enjoy the whining.
dmsilev
She’s concerned. But has she furrowed her brow yet? I don’t think it counts without furrowing.
cain
Why is the media making such a big deal about this NYC election? The Bernie bots and the media are crowing like some huge thing has happened and I can’t figure out why this suddenly is some great sign about things to come. I know why the bernie bots are crowing, but not sure why the media is other than to use it as a hammer to beat Dems with.
Shalimar
Killing a few million rural voters does not seem like a good idea for a party that wins rural areas by 50 points, but what do I know.
Harrison Wesley
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Susan Collins is concerned? Well, turn me to stone and call me a coprolite – who could have guessed?
zhena gogolia
I’m sorry, Clean Observer, but I hate his supporters more than he does.
zhena gogolia
@cain: You answered your own question. I too was shocked to see CNN, Wapo, and NYT all fanboying over it.
Jeffro
and here we run into the problem we’ve found with many other issues: unless something is VERY URGENTLY KILLING AMERICANS, then we stop paying attention a.s.a.p. It’s the biggest downside to being Party-Down Nation (or if you will, Daydream Nation).
Covid barely moved the needle in this regard, even though we were losing thousands of Americans per week at the peak of the pandemic. Gun violence doesn’t do it, even though it’s the #1 killer of kids.
Anyway, they can cut rural health care, make their own constituents drive 6 hours instead of 4 for routine care, get X% of them killed because of it…and it won’t even register. Plus they’ll just blame Democrats anyway.
Just put up signs by every closed hospital: “THIS HOSPITAL BANKRUPTED/CLOSED BY REPUBLICANS SO THAT THE RICH HAVE MORE MORE MORE” and call it a day
JCJ
@gene108: perhaps you are correct, but I also thought there was criticism for not lowering the age for Medicare eligibility. I waited to retire so that I could at worst buy COBRA coverage until I turned 65. Yes, I currently could buy insurance but with heart stents seven years ago at age 56 (I chose my parents poorly – father died at age 55 of his second heart attack, his dad had sudden death (likely cardiac) at age 51; my mother with heart bypass surgery at age 51) plus MGUS (possible precursor of multiple myeloma) pre-existing conditions could be a problem if Republicans do their dirty work
Harrison Wesley
@Jeffro: Goldfish Nation works,too. Once around the tank and all is forgotten.
Jeffro
It’s a good observation but they won’t kill millions (and of those they do kill, not all of them will be GOP voters)
It’s the same strategy they had when Biden took office and the GOP suddenly went anti-vax in order to kneecap the pandemic recovery: sure we’ll lose a few folks here and there, but a) they’ll be in red states and counties where we already have good margins b) we won’t lose too many, on net – some of them will be Dems, and c) it keeps the party together so it can keep delivering tax cuts for rich folks and hating on brown people
All of this, instead of looking out for their constituents’ best interests…
Jeffro
@Harrison Wesley: forgot what?
(good point!)
Baud
@cain:
I haven’t watched the coverage, but Cuomo is a pretty big name, especially in a market the media knows well. I’m sure the coverage is awful, but I can see it being big news for at least today.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: They are delighted because they can use him as a stick to beat Democrats. They have found a new Magic Boyfriend to replace the Magic Grandpa
They are acting like he has already become the mayor.
Gvg
@Harrison Wesley: goldfish actually have a pretty good memory and can be taught tricks. Most fish don’t.
Parfigliano
@Hunter Gathers: I hate Trump’s supporters too
RaflW
If the Big Bullshit Bill passes more or less in the current form (and it will, with perhaps a few more trims and wiggles), we all need to be ready to pounce on every rural hospital and esp nursing home closure. Trace it back to this giant hawked up loogie of evil. Make Republicans own the grannies shoved onto the streets or back into Cletus’s living room.
Harrison Wesley
@Gvg: So why aren’t Democrats going after the goldfish vote? They’re too working class or what?
Harrison Wesley
@RaflW: Especially local and state level Dems, since it’s only the media at that level which will cover it.
Baud
@RaflW:
Trump is planning a celebration tour. So there will be opportunities to protest.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@schrodingers_cat: As I said elsewhere, they are so desperate for their goddamn Revolution™ that they’re latching onto anyone and everything that even hints at kickstarting it.
Meanwhile, people ignore that Senate Democrats have been doing yeoman’s work in cleaning up large parts of the Big Pile of Bullshit and that congresswomen like Lauren Underwood have been fighting for and getting legislation passed to help single mothers, because none of that stuff is sexy at all.
Darkrose
@cain: Because the media is centered in New York. Occasionally they remember that LA exists, and yeah, there’s Washington, but that New Yorker cover still reflects the media mindset.
To be somewhat fair, having Clyburn and Clinton endorsing Cuomo definitely helped nationalize the race. I didn’t really care, what with living 3000 miles from NYC, until I realized that the establishment of my party was actively supporting a racist, misogynistic asshole whose policies actively killed people because…reasons?
Another Scott
@Sure Lurkalot:
Soundtrack – The Clash – Armagideon Time (lyrics + link to the video).
:-/
Best wishes,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Darkrose: Bernie Sanders endorsed Mamdani before Clinton’s endorsement. IIRC.
comrade Scott’s agenda of rage
Just a reminder for those always looking to hate and shit on residents of red states because “they voted for this”, Democrats live in those states and Medicaid cuts in rural areas will affect them and they didn’t vote for that.
I guess such people are simply acceptable collateral casualties in such a shitty world view.
Baud
@comrade Scott’s agenda of rage:
It’s out of our hands.
They Call Me Noni
@comrade Scott’s agenda of rage: Thank you.
Geminid
@cain: The media loves the “Dems in Disarray” narrative and they hope they can spin this primary into some big intra-party war.
To me, the result was as much or more about candidate quality than ideology. Mamdani was an inspiring candidate who ran a good campaign, while Cuomo was pretty much the opposite. And Cuomo came into the race dragging a ton of baggage.
I’ve seen the triumphalism among the Bernie bots too. They can see NYC Democratic incumbents falling like dominos. Now they’re trying to figure out who is best to run against Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres. They haven’t come up with anyone to run against Hakeem Jeffries yet, but they’re confident there’s someone out there who can beat him.
But there were always going to be a lot of incumbents challenged next year, and Mamdani’s win will only add a few more.
I think this is fine because I have confidence in Democratic primary voters. In the last four cycles, we’ve lost at most one seat because of a primary challenge, Curt Schrader’s in 2022. And Janelle Bynum took OR05 back two years later..
Darkrose
@schrodingers_cat: I’m sure he did. I didn’t care because again: not from New York. I only noticed when actual Democrats were endorsing the same guy they demanded resign four years ago because I honestly couldn’t believe it
Also, I don’t give a fuck what Bernie does. He’s not a Democrat. I care about senior members of *my* party endorsing a sex criminal.
Jay
@cain:
Zohran Mamdani beat The Machine, nym recognition, anti-Semitic ads by the ton, “Hyped Crime Fear”, big name endorsements, The NYC FNMSM, millions of dollars from Billionaires, the NYPD, the NYFD and Wall Street with a progressive Agenda a great campaign and the Youth Vote.
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
And now Bill Clinton has endorsed Zohran Mamdani .
Baud
@Jay:
Oh no!
RevRick
@Sure Lurkalot: except, if you read the text carefully, there was no battle. It went from the assembly of forces to a capitulation. It was a zero violence war.
gene108
@Jeffro:
People dying of chronic conditions will be blamed for their own deaths because they did something wrong, like eating something unhealthy like birthday cake once, or not exercising enough, or not getting enough sleep, etc.
RJK, Jr. and MAHA’s have already moved the GOP in this direction. The whole point of healthy living over everything else is to create groups of people who are worthy or unworthy of
salvationhealthcare.Only those who do everything right will never get chronic conditions, and if you do develop a chronic condition it means you have sinned and developed bad habits and must atone before receiving care.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: 😂
RevRick
@Jay: NYC mayoral races are big whoops.
lowtechcyclist
We did?? First of all, the uninsured rate dropped like a rock with implementation of the ACA. Second, if millions of people had become uninsured when the ACA took effect, any intelligent beings in the Alpha Centauri system would have been able to hear the resulting uproar. (4.3 years after the fact, but still.) And I don’t recall hearing any such story at the time.
Citation needed, Senator.
@JCJ:
As David Anderson has often said, 218-60-1-5. The Democrats needed a bill that could get 218 votes in the House, 60 in the Senate, the signature of the President, and 5 Supreme Court Justices finding it Constitutional.
This piece was written by Brian Beutler, who I normally have a fair amount of regard for. But I’d want him to explain just how his preferred form of health care legislation could have gotten 218-60-1-5 back in 2009-2010.
lowtechcyclist
@Sure Lurkalot:
She’s gone into overdrive! Can someone turn ‘er off? ;-)
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
The Rapture happened in 1975. That’s why nobody ever found Jimmy Hoffa.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Yeppers. Apparently this is what it takes to give meaning to their drab, mundane lives.
One would think the presence of the Lord of the whole freakin’ universe in their lives – which is something they claim to have – would take care of that quite well. Either God just isn’t enough, or they’re bullshitting each other about having God in their lives. As a Christian, I’ve long believed the latter.
No, they say they believe they won’t be around for the end of the world, they’ll get Raptured out beforehand. It’s their ‘get out of Armageddon free’ card.
lowtechcyclist
There was a brief moment in December 2009 when that was on the table, but Joe Fucking Lieberman killed it.
RaflW
@comrade Scott’s agenda of rage: One one level, I can have some sympathy for the rage and frustration. But indeed even in deep red Mississippi, 452,000 people voted for Ty Pinkins. And there’s plenty of people in red states who just cannot afford to pluck up and move – and leave extended family behind, find new work, housing & community.
I can’t just blow millions of people off because they’re not geographically concentrated enough.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RaflW:
I lived in “deep red” Misery for 22+ years. There weren’t many of us but we count.
The constant moral superiority of self-professed progressives who are almost always the same ones who spout that shit isn’t all that different than the right. None of whom have experienced that life, therefore, it must not count. It’s on constant display here.
Old School
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s more that Republicans claimed to love their lousy insurance and were then “forced” to obtain better coverage.
They weren’t uninsured but rather their existing coverage ended.
Miss Bianca
@PsiFighter37: thanks from “flyover country”, asshole.
TONYG
@PsiFighter37: Well, I think that the right-wing adult assholes in these rural areas deserve to suffer for their stupidity and bigotry. (Their minor kids don’t deserve to suffer.). In any event, when their hospitals shut down they’ll blame it on immigrants, or transgender people or (of course) black people, or some fucking thing. And then they’ll vote for Donald Trump Junior in 2018.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
‘Asshole’ is spot on.
TONYG
@lowtechcyclist: One of my co-workers (in New Jersey of all places) believed in that end-times shit. He looked forward to it. He believed that he (and, I guess, his immediate family) would be raptured up to spend eternity in heaven watching TV and eating Cheetos — while I would be tortured in hell for eternity. A Good Christian Man.
Blue Galangal
@PsiFighter37: Same. I’m at the point of “they’ll get over it” or they’ll be dead. Or both.
RevRick
I am now wearing a catcher’s mitt on my right hand. So I’m typing this with my left index finger. The MOHS surgery proved to be more complicated, going all the way to my bone on my right thumb, so the reconstruction was likewise more complicated. The surgeon basically split my thumb to create a flap. It will take several weeks to heal.
Ealbert
I think that rather than broad statements that the Republican budget bill will put rural hospitals at risk, like the article quoted, wherever possible we need to personalize it and state that the budget cuts will put ____________ (hospital name) at risk. I live in the Madison, Wisconsin area and we have two major hospitals (St.Mary’s and University hospitals) . Between them, they have about 1,000 rooms). However, my husband’s family for the most part live in south central and south western Wisconsin and they are served by a regional hospital in Platteville. My mother-in-law died this last December and she was treated in this hospital. That was when I learned that the hospital had 22 hospital rooms (they also have some amount of birthing suites). That’s it for the whole multi-county area. If something is serious or complicated, their choices are traveling multiple hours to go to a hospital in Milwaukee, Madison, or Dubuque, Iowa. This is not a overly poor area and Platteville has a UW campus in it, so I don’t think that it is in danger of closing but it shows how quickly things could go bad in poorer areas in many states.