{"id":10618,"date":"2025-06-25T12:01:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-johnson-warns-about-a-medicaid-backlash\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T12:01:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:01:40","slug":"capitol-agenda-johnson-warns-about-a-medicaid-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-johnson-warns-about-a-medicaid-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Johnson warns about a Medicaid backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With President Donald Trump\u2019s July 4 deadline drawing near, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Blue Light News Tuesday night he believes the Senate is \u201con a path\u201d to start voting on the megabill Friday.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s got several fires to put out first. For one, he\u2019s under immense pressure to water down the Medicaid provisions the Senate GOP is counting on for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Barack] Obama said \u2026 \u2018if you like your health care you can keep it, if you like your doctor we can keep it,\u2019 and yet we had several million people lose their health care,\u201d the in-cycle senator told reporters Tuesday. \u201cHere we\u2019re saying [with] Medicaid, we\u2019re going to hold people harmless, but we\u2019re estimating\u201d millions of people could lose coverage.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cwe like where we are.\u201d Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who\u2019s been pushing for the fund, said while that \u201chelps lessen the impact,\u201d she remains \u201cconcerned about the changes in the funding for Medicaid in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other drama hanging over the bill are several imminent, critical rulings from Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough. Several committees that already have rulings in hand are due to release revised text as soon as this morning, according to a person familiar with the plans. And Republicans could know as soon as Wednesday whether MacDonough will clear major parts of their tax package.<\/p>\n

As of late Tuesday, the parliamentarian had not yet ruled on provisions linked to the so-called current policy baseline, an accounting maneuver that zeroes out the costs of $3.8 trillion of expiring tax cuts, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private discussions.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: Adverse rulings could send Republicans back to the drawing board on making their tax plan permanent, or otherwise force them to go nuclear and override or ignore MacDonough altogether. There\u2019s uncertainty from all sides about how that would play out, given the gambit has never been tried before with tax legislation.<\/p>\n

This much is already clear: With the tax package in flux and Medicaid savings under threat, GOP leaders have a major math problem<\/a> on their hands. And House fiscal hawks are watching to see, regardless of the accounting method, whether the Senate sticks to the budget deal they agreed to with Johnson earlier this year.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Bove on Blue Light News:<\/b> Senate Judiciary lawmakers will convene the first blockbuster judicial hearing of the second Trump administration later Wednesday, where they will grill Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official and former criminal defense lawyer for Trump who has a shot at a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Some even see him as a potential future Trump Supreme Court nominee.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Vought testifies on rescissions: <\/b>OMB Director Russ Vought will testify in front of the Senate\u2019s full bench of appropriators Wednesday afternoon to justify the White House\u2019s request for $9.4 billion in cuts of previously-approved money. Expect pointed questioning from various Republicans on the panel, including Collins, who has publicly opposed cuts to PEPFAR, the HIV and AIDS foreign aid program.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Iran briefings incoming: <\/b>Senators will have a postponed briefing on the situation in Iran on Thursday, after which Democrat Tim Kaine (Va.) is aiming to call a vote on his resolution seeking to block further U.S. military action against Iran. On the House side, Speaker Johnson said that members will now be briefed on Friday. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday there had been no Gang of Eight meeting yet.<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With President Donald Trump\u2019s July 4 deadline drawing near, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Blue Light News Tuesday night he believes the Senate is \u201con a path\u201d to start voting on the megabill Friday. But he\u2019s got several fires to put out first. For one, he\u2019s under immense pressure to water down the Medicaid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}