Senate Republicans and Democrats remain divided on the Medicaid issue hours after President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ passed a key Senate vote Saturday night.
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., both appeared on ‘Fox News Sunday’ to discuss Trump’s legislation in the wake of the 51-49 vote.
Banks argued that the Medicaid reforms would only affect certain people.
‘The Medicaid reforms would affect able-bodied Americans, those who are sitting at home who can work, who don’t work, who don’t have a sick kid or a sick mom, they shouldn’t receive Medicaid without working,’ he said. ‘And on top of that, the bill would take Medicaid away from illegal immigrants.’
Coons conceded there are states that are using their state funding to provide healthcare ‘for people who are undocumented,’ though argued that Trump’s $900 billion cuts to the program ‘are not about throwing people off of Medicaid who are not here legally.’
‘They are about imposing more and more requirements on the beneficiaries of Medicaid,’ the Democrat said.
Banks argued that taxes for everyday Americans will go up if the bill doesn’t get passed.
‘If we don’t pass this bill, everyone’s taxes on average will go up $2,000 a household, and that’s not fair to the regular Americans who work hard every day,’ he said.
Lingering concerns in both chambers about Medicaid — specifically the Medicaid provider tax rate and the effect of direct payments to states — energy tax credits, the state and local tax (SALT) deduction and others proved to be pain points that threatened the bill’s survival.
Coons, however, said that Americans who don’t believe the Democrats’ standpoint should listen to Sen. Tom Tillis, R-N.C., who, along with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted against the bill.
‘Don’t believe me. Listen to Senator Tom Tillis,’ Coons said. ‘He’s been saying loudly this bill is a bad deal for the middle class. It’ll raise healthcare costs and throw millions off of needed health care.’
On Sunday morning, Trump slammed both Tillis and Paul on social media.
Hours later, Tillis announced he would not seek reelection.
Following the vote, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded that the text of the behemoth bill be read aloud before debates begin. After 14 hours, Senate clerks were still about 120 pages short of finishing reading aloud the 940-page text.
Once the reading is finished, the two parties will each get about 10 hours to debate on the bill.
The timeline puts a likely Senate vote-a-rama on the bill in the early morning hours of Monday. A final passage vote could happen between late morning and late Monday night.
Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller and Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
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