Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' faces setback as Senate rules knock out key Medicaid provisions

A arguable alteration to the Medicaid supplier tax complaint successful Senate Republicans’ mentation of the "big, beauteous bill" has been knocked retired by Senate rules.

Senate Budget Committee Democrats announced connected Thursday that the Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled against a slew of halfway provisions wrong President Donald Trump’s colossal bill, including tweaks to Medicaid that divided Republicans successful the precocious chamber.

SENATE REPUBLICANS LOOK TO SWEETEN MEDICAID POT TO SILENCE DISSENT ON TRUMP'S 'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL'

U.S. President Donald Trump stops and talks to the media earlier helium boards Marine One connected the South Lawn astatine the White House connected June 15, 2025 successful Washington, DC.  (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Indeed, MacDonough ruled that the harsher Medicaid supplier taxation complaint crackdown successful the Senate’s mentation of the measure did not comport with the Byrd Rule, which provides guardrails for the fund reconciliation process.

That ruling, and the stripping retired of different provisions that included denying states Medicaid backing for having amerciable immigrants connected the payment rolls, preventing amerciable immigrants from participating successful Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and preventing Medicaid and CHIP backing from going toward gender-affirming care, among others, has gutted galore of Republicans’ cardinal cost-saving Medicaid changes, and apt acceptable backmost their program to enactment the mammoth measure connected Trump’s table by July 4.

Senate Democrats vowed to inflict arsenic overmuch symptom arsenic imaginable connected Republicans done the "Byrd Bath," wherever provisions are gone done line-by-line to spot whether they comply with the Byrd Rule.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., astatine the Capitol successful Washington, Tuesday, June 3, 2025.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., accused Republicans of "scrambling to rewrite parts of this bill" arsenic much and much provisions are knocked retired by the parliamentarian.

"Democrats are continuing to marque the lawsuit against each proviso successful this Big, Beautiful Betrayal of a measure that violates Senate rules and hurts families and workers," Merkley said successful a statement. "Democrats are warring backmost against Republicans’ plans to gut Medicaid, dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and footwear kids, veterans, seniors, and folks with disabilities disconnected of their wellness security – each to money taxation breaks for billionaires.

The Senate Finance Committee’s changes to the supplier taxation complaint were a stark departure from the House GOP’s mentation of the bill. Senate Republicans went further than the House’s frost of the rate, oregon the magnitude that authorities Medicaid programs wage to healthcare providers connected behalf of Medicaid beneficiaries, for non-Affordable Care Act enlargement states and included a proviso that lowers the complaint successful enlargement states annually until it hits 3.5%.

SEVERAL PROVISIONS FAIL TO PASS MUSTER WITH SENATE RULES IN 'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL'

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is seen aft the Senate luncheons successful the U.S. Capitol connected Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Those changes angered a fistful of Republicans, similar Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who person warned not to marque revisions to the wellness attraction programme that could unopen down agrarian hospitals and footwear moving Americans from their benefits.

The parliamentarian argued successful her ruling that "ending states' quality to taxation wellness attraction providers would severely bounds states' quality to supply wellness attraction to millions of Americans who beryllium upon Medicaid for their care."

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In bid for Senate Republicans to ram the president’s docket done the Senate with a reduced 51-vote threshold, provisions wrong the measure person to adhere to the Byrd Rule, which requires that argumentation changes indispensable person a budgetary and spending impact.

News of the provision’s removal comes arsenic lawmakers were floating a imaginable hole to the crackdown successful the signifier of a stabilization money for agrarian hospitals. One connection floated by the Senate Finance Committee would commencement a money that distributes a full of $15 cardinal implicit the adjacent 5 fiscal years to states that use for the program.