The Dictatorship
‘We are less-than’: Americans fear more cuts to healthcare programs after RFK Jr. hearings
The walls are closing in on millions of Americans who utilize federal healthcare benefits such as Medicare and Medicaid, as the sweeping changes and cuts promised in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” inch closer to reality, and lawmakers do little to soften the incoming blow.
All eyes were on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week as he wrapped up a marathon seven congressional committee hearings, in review of several proposed federal health nominees and his handling of HHS. Senators spent the week grilling Kennedy over Trump’s 2027 budget proposalwhich would cut $15.8 billion from HHS and put new restrictions on those seeking Medicaid coverage — on top of the impacts of Trump’s bill, which leaves millions at risk of losing insurance coverage.
But the Kennedy hearings didn’t offer much in the way of positive news for federal aid recipients anxious about the future. Instead, Kennedy spent the week defending Trump’s budget proposal and balking — or making misleading claims — about cuts to Medicaid, which is poised to lose $1 trillion in federal spending by 2034 under Trump’s current terms.
“In all honesty, until Trump is gone, RFK is out, along with others who shouldn’t be anywhere near anything to do with Healthcare, we are screwed,” said Edwina Billhimer, a Medicaid recipient and registered Republican who lives in southern Indiana.
Billhimer suffers from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disorder that causes joint issues, chronic pain and severe fatigue. Billhimer cannot physically work and takes medicine around the clock to manage her symptoms. She’s the primary caregiver to her 39-year-old son Dennis, who had half of his brain removed following seizures. Her daughter Michaela was also diagnosed with EDS.
“I feel hopeless. I am waiting for people like myself and my son, along with the elderly, people with cancer and other diseases to be put in camps or hospitals till we die,” she said.
Shifting goal posts
Cuts to government healthcare programs have already had significant impacts on Americans since Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law last July.
In December, Affordable Care Act tax credits expired, causing health premiums to skyrocket for many of the benefit’s 22 million recipients — millions of whom are set to drop their health insurance. Americans without company sponsored healthcare, such as entrepreneurs, small farmers and freelancers, saw immediate increases in their costs.
This year, states across the country have reported hundreds of millions in added costs and lost tax revenue, and hundreds of rural hospitals are on the brink of closure. In January, the House responded by passing a bill to extend the ACA tax credits, but talks have since stagnated in the Senate.
Trump’s bill features one major change for individuals on Medicaid: a new, strict work requirement for eligibility that could block millions from enrolling in the program.
“They must be working at least 80 hours a month, attending school or participating in other specified activities like volunteering in order to receive Medicaid coverage, unless they qualify for an exemption,” said Jennifer Haley, a principal research associate at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Division. Her team’s recent analysis painted a grim picture for those seeking Medicaid going forward.
Trump’s bill, Hayley said, “would lead to a decline in Medicaid expansion enrollment of about five to 10 million people in 2028.”
Despite ongoing White House claims that people have exploited these programs by avoiding employment, Haley said the majority of those enrolled in Medicaid already work.
But with an average unemployment rate bouncing between 4.3% and 4.45%, getting a job has been challenging for many Americans.
“I think 14 months of looking, I’ve probably put in somewhere around close to 2000 applications, and I’ve had a couple dozen interviews and nothing,” said Medicaid recipient Justin Cornell, 43, of Denver.
Cornell, who is currently unhoused, said he has been kicked off Medicaid about four times in the last seven years. Even with an advanced education, he said he mostly has relied on temporary gigs and food deliveries for income.
Cornell said his own health challenges got him where he is. In 2016, he was diagnosed with type two diabetes, and spent his 401(k) “on healthcare expenses.”
“I had someone help me get on Medicaid at that point, and it saved my life, because I was in the hospital for two nights in the ICU,” he said. The bill, he added, “was something close to $300,000, which obviously I wouldn’t have had. And unfortunately, I have been kind of in and out of housing and on and off Medicaid and SNAP since then.”
Cornell said he thinks many people have misconceptions about the Americans using healthcare programs such as Medicaid.
“If you were to walk into just about any shelter in any city at this point, you would discover that most of those people are working,” he said. “They’re usually working more than one job, and they’re just not making it. It’s not someone who is lazy, because you can’t get on these programs and not put any effort into it.”
“You need to call every week, you need to go down every week, you need to meet with someone, because that’s how you’re going to get on the program, not just applying to them,” Cornell added.
“We are looked down at”
Now it’s a waiting game as millions of Americans like Cornell and Billhimer brace for further healthcare cuts. The national anxiety over cost and cuts is clear in current polling data.
In a recently released Gallup survey of 20,000 Americans, roughly a third of respondents reported making “at least one trade-off with daily living expenses to afford healthcare.”
Just under half of U.S. adults said they struggle to afford healthcare costs, according to a study by the independent research institute KFF. About 3 in 10 said they or an immediate family member had problems paying for healthcare in the past 12 months.
For Billhimer, living life in fear of what could happen to her family’s coverage has been gruesome.
“Ever since the Big, Beautiful Bill passed, I have worried,” she said. “Right now, because of Medicaid, my medications and my son’s medications are covered. … If we were to lose the Medicaid coverage, it would be medications, or eating. And just the thought of that absolutely terrifies me.”
During a private Easter luncheon at the White House earlier this month, Trump suggested the federal government could not — and would not — fund federal aid programs such as Medicaid.
“It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” he said.
“They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country,” he continued.
The White House posted, and then deleted, the statement to social media.
Billhimer said Trump’s comments were devastating — and telling.
“People like us are not looked at. We are looked down at, because we’re less than,” Billhimer said. Of Trump’s comments, she said, “I’m embarrassed, because this isn’t the United States I grew up in at all.”
Maya Eaglin is a reporter at MS NOW covering breaking news, politics and current events around the country. She was previously an award-winning national correspondent at NBC News specializing in digital storytelling.
The Dictatorship
Trump wants a Supreme Court do-over on birthright citizenship, but he won’t get one
For months, Donald Trump made clear that he expected the Supreme Court to rule against him on birthright citizenship, and his expectations were correct: Last week, a narrow majority of the high court ruled that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment means what it says.
Hours after the decision came down, the president downplayed the importance of his defeat, saying that he would pursue a legislative solution through Congress, but eight days later, the Republican published a very different kind of message to his social media platform that approached the issue in a more hysterical way. The missive read, in its entirety:
Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, with “Deliveries starting at $4000.” Likewise, similar signs going up all over our Country. Billions of Dollars will be illegally made by this SCAM, with Citizenship going to anyone willing to pay. It will be, by far, the number one way of becoming a citizen, and then the entire family will be allowed to follow. Not sustainable.
NOBODY SAW THIS COMING!!! AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong. I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Even by Trump standards, this one’s a doozy.
The New York Times reported“The president appeared to be referring to a Fox News report that identified a hospital in Texas that had advertised paying for ‘Birth Packages in South Texas’ on billboards in Mexico. The outlet reported that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, had ordered an investigation into the hospital, which told Fox News that “marketing materials regarding maternity services are no longer in use due to any unintended misunderstanding.”
Trump apparently took this report and ran with it, inventing various other details, including the amusing idea that cross-border birth tourism will somehow become “the number one way of becoming a citizen” (“by far,” the president added), as opposed to simply being born on U.S. soil to American parents.
But even if such an advertising campaign existed, it wouldn’t generate a rehearing from the Supreme Court. There is no scenario in which justices would say, “Sure, we ruled last week that the unambiguous language of the 14th Amendment means what it says, but if there are billboards going up, that changes everything.”
For good measure, let’s not forget that, according to Trump, his administration has effectively ended illegal border crossings, so as a practical matter, he really shouldn’t be that concerned.
The president’s online rant said he intends to ask for an immediate rehearing. If he orders administration lawyers to go through with such a pointless exercise and they bother to do the paperwork, they should keep their collective expectations low.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
Maine Democrats are scrambling to replace Graham Platner a day after their nominee for U.S. Senate ended his bid following an allegation of sexual assault.
There’s a July 27 deadline set by state law for the party faithful to pick a new standard bearer in a race that is expected to be instrumental when it comes to whether Republicans can keep control of the Senate in this fall’s midterms.
Incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins may be vulnerable, but she has won five straight races for the seat dating back to 1996, and trying to defeat her was likely to carry challenges for Democrats even in the best case scenario.
Their new candidate will have to essentially start from nothing in the race, mend the divisions sown by Platner, introduce (or reintroduce) themselves to the broader electorate and corral support from the ex-candidate’s outsider-minded current and former followers, all in less than four months.
That amounts to a daunting task with massive implications not only for Maine Democrats, but potentially for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s time in the White House. Democrats need to flip at least four GOP-held Senate seats, and maintain all their current ones from several competitive states, to vault themselves into the majority in the midterms. A loss in Maine would be a significant setback.
Maine Democratic Party leaders announced plans “to hold a nominating convention to choose a new nominee,” while stating that “transparency is of the utmost importance.”
Already, several major voices are in the race, including unsuccessful candidate for governor and past Platner supporter Troy Jackson. The former state senate president made his bid clear less than an hour after Platner left the race. One major Bernie Sanders-aligned group, Our Revolution, has quickly rallied around Jackson.
Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company,”https://x.com/mainebeerbrewer/status/2075028234962677872?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet”>is also in the fray, along with former governor candidate Nirav Shah, who worked as Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows who also ran for governor this summer is among other potential contenders.
Platner’s exit also brings difficulty for Collins and Republicans as well, however. Instead of facing a Democratic rival with a string of alarming controversies even before the sexual assault allegationan accustation Platner has denied, Collins instead will have to try to keep her seat in a blue state against someone far less defined, and potentially with far fewer vulnerabilities, in November.
Across the country this year, Democrats have navigated a political environment rife with divisions over how to sway voters in these strange times, with tension between more entrenched party leaders and an energetic and angered left wing often spilling out into the open.
What happens in Maine over the coming weeks may prove to be no different.
Hunter Woodall covers politics for MS NOW. He’s reported on politics and presidential campaigns for The Associated Press and CBS News and reported on Congress for The Minnesota Star Tribune.
It’s been almost three years since Kevin McCarthy became the first sitting House speaker to be ousted in the middle of a congressional sessionbut the California Republican has nevertheless tried to maintain a public profile and has routinely appeared on conservative media to push partisan talking points.
So it wasn’t too surprising to see McCarthy on Fox News on Monday night, responding to the latest sexual assault allegations against Graham Platner, still a candidate for Senate at the time.
As part of an apparent effort to contextualize the scandals surrounding the Maine Democrat, the former GOP leader said, “One thing I know about Republicans is when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn’t vote for that person. We walked away.”
Moments later, McCarthy added, “When Matt Gaetz came forward, we got rid of him.”
As is too often the case, the failed former House speaker not only had it backward, but his mistake also offered a timely reminder of details that made him and his party look worse, not better.
Indeed, Gaetz offers a rather extraordinary example. The Justice Department investigated the Florida Republican over allegations of alleged sex trafficking, and while Gaetz repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and the prosecutors’ probe ended without charges, his House GOP colleagues made no effort to “get rid of him” as the scandal intensified.
What’s more, the House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz “regularly” paid women for sex, had sex with a 17-year-old during his tenure on Capitol Hill and possessed illegal drugs. Nevertheless, as that evidence came together, he remained a GOP member in good standing; he won re-election in 2024 with the Republican Party’s backing; and President Donald Trump thought it would be a good idea to nominate Gaetz to serve as the U.S. attorney general — a nomination endorsed by Republican senators such as South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Alabama’s Tommy Tubervilleeven after they had seen the House Ethics Committee’s findings.
This is what McCarthy cited as an example of the GOP maintaining the highest standards and throwing “very bad candidates” to the curb. That’s ridiculous.
But there’s no reason to stop with Gaetz. Indeed, the list of scandal-plagued Republicans who continued to enjoy the party’s backing long after ugly allegations had reached the public is not short. Trump is obviously the most glaring example, but the list includes other contemporary figures, including Rep. Cory Mills of Florida and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
There’s no reason to limit the list to electoral candidates, either: Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth faced an avalanche of scandals during his confirmation fight early last year, but Senate Republicans decided to ignore the allegations and make him defense secretary anyway.
As the Hegseth fight unfolded, political scientist Jonathan Bernstein published a smart piece that remains relevant: “I do not believe that Republicans or conservatives are any more prone to [scandals] than Democrats. What has changed, however, is the incentive structure. Once upon a time both parties were equally likely to rid themselves of bad actors; now Republicans are far more likely to tolerate, and in some cases even celebrate, behavior they once would have shunned.”
When Democrats learned of serious allegations against then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the party abandoned him. When then-New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez faced serious criminal charges for which he was later convicted, the party abandoned him, too.
In Maine, the Platner example followed the same path, as evidenced by his decision to withdraw from the Maine race after Democratic officials left him with no other choice.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, an MS NOW legal analyst, explained this week“The contrast here is hard to ignore. Democrats have shown that when credible allegations of sexual misconduct emerge against one of their own, the conversation turns quickly to accountability. Republicans have made a different choice. That’s not a partisan talking point, it’s a difference in how the two parties have approached questions of character and fitness for office over the last 10 years.”
That’s true, whether McCarthy wants to acknowledge it or not.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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