“One Big Bill” for Granite Staters to Pay
- Amplify NH
- May 27
- 4 min read
Last week, in a session spanning all night, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that guts Medicaid to pay for more tax cuts for billionaires. This serves as just another example that Republicans are happy to let hardworking Americans pay the price for their political interests.
Let’s take a look at how this bill will impact Granite Staters:
Trump-Backed “One Big Beautiful Bill” Guts Medicaid and Social Services to Pay for Tax Breaks for Billionaires
By passing the Trump-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill” last week, Congressional Republicans opted to provide tax breaks to billionaires, subsequently undermining social safety programs in the United States in order to offset lost tax revenue.
Most notably, this bill is set to impose work requirements for low-income adults to receive Medicaid health insurance. Here in New Hampshire, Medicaid cuts could also result in 60,000 Granite Staters losing their health care coverage altogether.
Once implemented, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over a decade.
Additionally, the bill would also increase work requirements for food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Imposing work requirements for these social service programs leaves the potential for some to wrongfully lose their services and/or access to care.
Reproductive Health Care at Risk as Bill “Defunds” Planned Parenthood
As part of the included cuts for social programming, Republicans’ bill also seeks to prohibit Medicaid funding from covering care services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics.
As federal funds allocated through Medicaid are already largely prohibited from directly paying for abortions, with this bill, congressional Republicans are seeking to bar clinics and providers that offer abortions from accepting Medicaid for the other family planning and non-abortion reproductive health care services they provide, seriously handicapping women’s access to critical health care.
In a statement slamming the bill, Jessica Barquist, Kayla Montgomery, and Lisa Marqulies, Vice Presidents of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, noted that “defunding” organizations like Planned Parenthood won’t actually lower costs, only put vulnerable patients at risk.
“To be clear, 'defunding' Planned Parenthood and taking away health insurance from millions will do nothing to lower health care costs, address challenges in our health care system, or save lives,” the statement said. "’Defunding’ Planned Parenthood won’t defund the need for care. It will only increase the strain on an already fragile health care system and create worse health outcomes for all involved.”
NH Delegation Slams Bill, Speaking Up for Vulnerable Granite Staters
With Republicans in Washington gutting services and raising costs for Granite Staters and Kelly Ayotte and NH Republicans failing to take action to protect New Hampshire, our federal delegation were united against this devastating budget, standing up and speaking out on behalf of vulnerable Granite Staters.
“The phones in my office won’t stop ringing because people I represent are beyond angry,” said Congressman Chris Pappas during the debate on the bill. “And we know that (healthcare is) all being ripped away in order to give big tax breaks to billionaires and the biggest corporations.”
“This bill is going to be devastating for so many people across New Hampshire. This bill is going to bring about the biggest deficit increase in American history. And for what? This is all for the biggest tax breaks, tax giveaways… to billionaires and big corporations,” said Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander after the vote.
US Senator Jeanne Shaheen blasted the bill saying “They’re going to take food and health care away from working families so that the ultra-wealthy can get an extra payout.” And US Senator Maggie Hassan also slammed the passage of the budget:
“At a time when we should be working to make health care more affordable, Congressional Republicans instead continue to push ahead with this partisan tax giveaway paid for by exploding the deficit and…increase health care costs for millions of Americans.”
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Thank you,
Ryan Mahoney
Executive Director