The Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled out a few key Medicaid provisions in President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”
MacDonough slashed the “plan to cap states’ use of health care provider taxes to collect more federal Medicaid funding, a proposal that would have generated hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to offset the cost of making President Trump’s corporate tax cuts permanent.”
From Fox News:
Indeed, MacDonough ruled that the harsher Medicaid provider tax rate crackdown in the Senate’s version of the bill did not comport with the Byrd Rule, which provides guardrails for the budget reconciliation process.
That ruling, and the stripping out of other provisions that included denying states Medicaid funding for having illegal immigrants on the benefit rolls, preventing illegal immigrants from participating in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and preventing Medicaid and CHIP funding from going toward gender-affirming care, among others, has gutted many of Republicans’ key cost-saving Medicaid changes, and likely set back their plan to put the mammoth bill on Trump’s desk by July 4.
I wonder if Senate Majority Leader John Thune will bring the bill to the floor next week.
Trump hoped to sign the bill by July 4.
The changes angered Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).
The Democrats also pounced on the changes.
“Democrats are continuing to make the case against every provision in this Big, Beautiful Betrayal of a bill that violates Senate rules and hurts families and workers,” stated Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR). “Democrats are fighting back against Republicans’ plans to gut Medicaid, dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and kick kids, veterans, seniors, and folks with disabilities off of their health insurance – all to fund tax breaks for billionaires.”
The Republicans could hold “a simple-majority vote on the floor to establish a new precedent, expanding the scope of what is eligible under reconciliation” to escape the parliamentarian’s decision.
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Comments
b/c the fear is that the all-powerful dem/msm will keep hammering how
trump cut medicaid
let them hammer, illegals should not get any benefits
The one benefit that they are “entitled” to, and I fully support, is a 1-way ticket back to their country of origin. Using the cheapest transportation possible. Preferably as cargo.
so now of course the focus will shift to the
who the f is this Parliamentarian ??
when the dems fought to eliminate the electoral college it proved how ignorant they really are
but the fact is this Parliamentarian is another unelected entity that cna hurt either dem or gop but has no real place in a republic
he was appointed by Harry Reid
@LeaderJohnThune has a job to do. He needs to kill the BBB without leaving fingerprints or any blowback. Therefore, he will not realize parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough should be replaced until after the voting is completed
Odd how during the Biden regime, she had no objections to any insane green new deal/woke garbage. Almost like the parliamentarian’s decisions are guided by political bias. But that’s crazy.
Her role is advisory only and not binding. Thune had better man up and step in her face.
He won’t. He’s a Uniparty loser just like his daddy, McConnell.
He said he won’t
Because he never supported it in the first place
RINOs are democrats
So, you mean allowing a single unelected democrat hack to veto legislation is not advisable?
Josh Hawley
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is presenting himself as the rare Republican willing to fight for low-income Americans who will lose their health care or food assistance if his party makes massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. He has been rewarded with much credulous reporting suggesting he is sincere about that.
so why doesnt josh STEP UP TO THE PLATE and tell the dems to pay for people DIRECTLY FROM THEIR $$$$$$$$$$ POLITICAL bribes…funding ..call it what you want
turn allll the medicaid over to the locals
let them ask their voters to pay for it
and then the locals can jail fraudsters etc
Dirty RINOs think illegals should continue to be entitled to Medicaid (3rd paragraph):
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/26/congress/senate-gop-dealt-major-blow-on-megabill-health-care-plans-00425256
Please, God, rid us of this traitorous trash.
Cane them
The Medicaid scam continues in full force.
so if non of these can be but…ever
why not just do as the lefty says and eliminate the “need” to have any budget!!?
whats the point of a budget if you dont have to have a budget that actually….budgets
no such thing as a balanced budget…btw as that implies so sort of “Good feelings”
as opposed
to the not wasting money which is what they want you to believe is actually happening
correction:
can be CUT
as that implies some sort of
“Democrats are fighting back against Republicans’ plans to gut Medicaid (for illegals), dismantle the Affordable Care Act (for illegals), and kick kids (illegals), veterans (illegals), seniors (illegals), and folks with disabilities (illegals) off of their health insurance – all to fund tax breaks for everyone else (regardless of class).”
FTFY, Jeff Merkley. No one but retards and RINOs (waxing redundant there, I know) buy your bullsh*t.
Righty oh, Felix. You called it.
Anyone else think the Senate is one big chamber full of smoke and mirrors?
smokn crack
and snortn co caine off of mirrors
I’m still trying to understand why Senate Republicans should faithfully adhere to a rule devised by a West Virginia Democrat and former Klan member who died in 2010.
In fairness the Byrd rule is in place to keep non germane items out of what’s supposed to be a clear cut reconciliation bill to sneakily sidestep a filibuster. A majority could override the Parliamentarian…IF they are willing to be called names by media and uninvited from the DC cocktail party circuit ..so I wouldn’t count on it.
IMO the better course in the Senate rules would be to end the ability of a Senator to place a ‘hold’ on a nominee or simply make an objection to legislation to prevent a vote. Now if a Senator or group of Senators are motivated to block an up/down vote that’s fine…give the the opportunity to speak in opposition for as long as they wish/can do so. IOW require a speaking filibuster v the more common modern practice of procedural filibuster. Retain the filibuster but make them work for it.
I don’t care about fairness. It’s all about winning. For at least a couple decades the Dems have operated under the leftist slogan “by any means necessary”. Republicans are slow learners, but will they learn now? Because there might not be more chances that matter.
Remember how Obamacare was passed (or maybe it was the Patriot Act, but I think Obamacare). On a Sunday, with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. acting as House parliamentarian (replacing the fulltime parliamentarian — hm can the Senate have John Thune rule on these issues in the Big Beautiful Bill now before them instead of McDonough?) automatically denying at least two strong Republican parliamentary objections to how things were being done. And it passed by one vote.
Dems will act reasonable, until it serves them better to act unreasonable. It’s time for Reps to act extremely unreasonable.
Then they need to set priorities:
1. Cut the damn spending. Go back to pre Covid levels immediately. Use FY 2019 as budget cap. Spent $4.4 Trillion on revenue of $3.5 Trillion. By contrast in FY24 we had spent $6.75 Trillion on revenue of $4.92 Trillion. Doing this puts us beyond a balanced budget to paying down National Debt by 1/2 $Trillion. It takes political will and leadership to cajole, harass, threaten motivate Congress and that task falls on POTUS.
2. Increase interior immigration enforcement to include ruthless prosecution of employers and anyone else who facilitated illegal Aliens. If that means arrests of clergy who hand out a flipping sandwich or a bottle of water and ICE sweeping K-12 to round up illegal Aliens then do it.
3. Mass incarceration. Give legit 1st time offender a break but only one. After that tough cookies, max sentences. Have US Attorneys sweeping the local police reports to find Federal violations and start prosecution. Same for mental health. Put these folks into a facility if they are persistently unable to function in public. Same for.drug addicts; put them into a place to rehab, one shot afterwards if they relapse they go to a cold turkey facility and they either dry out or die trying.
Do those three things and everything else basically falls into place. Won’t be funds available for ‘sob story’ lefty NGOs or to support Illegal Aliens nor to support able bodied Adult US Citizens with gov’t handouts or other lefty/wokiesta boondoggles b/c of the spending cap. As illegal Aliens figure out they can’t get hired or get benefits from Uncle Sugar they will self deport or flipping starve in a gutter. Either way that’s jobs available for US Citizens including those now cut off the welfare rolls. Wages will increase, tax revenues will increase,.class sizes drop, less students from K-12 to College means better opportunity for instruction. Quality of life in our communities rises due to less criminals, addicts, drug dealers.
Because it’s one of the parliamentary rules of the Senate.
Notice how it’s always the unelected that are in charge. The administrative state is in full control and nothing really will change.
McDonough is appointed by the Senate to work for them. She can be replaced by a Senate vote. She is not a member of the executive branch.
I seem to recall a good deal of invective directed at a few GoP HoR members who pointed out this thing was gonna get sliced up in the Senate That the already weak sauce cuts designed to ‘pay for’ some dubious spending like raising the SALT deduction to $40K and the very modest adjustments to Medicare program eligibility/finance would get gutted by the Parliamentarian (b/c that’s what they’ve done in the past when presented with such far ranging legislation).
Congress needs to cut spending. Period. Not in the future. Today. If we can’t get Congress to do basic common sense things that have 55% + approval like restrict Medicaid eligibility of non disabled Adults w/o young children by requiring 20 hours of work or put teeth into the public charge rule to prevent illegal Aliens from receiving federal benefits…..we’re never gonna cut spending sufficiently to get our fiscal house in order. The folks who refuse to vote for that ain’t serious about cutting spending and we.should stop listening to anything they have to say about taxes, spending, budgets, debt or deficits b/c they are lying frauds.
I think the Republicans can replace McDonough on a simple majority vote. She’s stripping out everything that saves money from the bill which was already a budget buster, and leaving in all the stuff that costs more money.
Her actions are arguably partisan, there won’t be a chance in the future to do a lot of this stuff, and so the time is now to spend the credibility and replace the parliamentarian — if that means they can get new rulings on these things. Choose someone far right. Don’t worry about Dem screams, that just means the Reps are doing the right things. She was appointed by a Dem. Now it’s time for a parliamentarian appointed by the Reps.
This is the last chance. Next year it won’t pass the House because of greater focus on the 2026 election. After that likely the Dems will control the House and nothing can be accomplished in Congress for the last 2 years of Trump’s term. Replace McDonough.
“The Democrats also pounced on the changes.”
Confusing. Why would Democrats object to changes which disallowed cuts to Medicaid?
Parliament of whores. Repeal 16th amendment. This country is a long way from being fixed if it ever is.
The perverse sick vote buyers of the demoncrats love to lie that Republicans denying increases is cutting the program.
They depend on keeping the gullible on the demoncrat plantation.