Senate Republican Thom Tillis spent his Sunday night railing against the Medicaid cuts contained in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” in a fiery speech just hours after he announced he would retire at the end of this term.
“Between the state-directed payments and the cuts scheduled in this bill—there’s a reduction of state-directed payments. And then there’s the reduction of the provider tax. They can’t find a hole in my estimate. So what they told me is that ‘yeah, it’s rough, but North Carolina’s used the system, they’re gonna have to make it work,’” Tillis said. “Alright, so what do I tell six hundred sixty-three thousand people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys? The people in the White House advising the president … are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.”
Tillis: What do I tell 663,000 people in two years, three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys?The people in the White House advising the president, they’re not telling him that the effect… pic.twitter.com/MhJAdPg4OA
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
Tillis went on to compare the bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid to that of Obamacare, and posited that the wave of Republican victories that followed that policy will now be transferred to the Democrats in both the upcoming midterms and the general election.
“Now, Republicans are about to make a mistake on healthcare and betray a promise. It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump was in the Oval Office.”
Tillis announced his retirement Sunday after once again angering the MAGA base with a vote against Trump’s budget bill the day before. He isn’t the only Republican to realize that Trump’s marquee piece of legislation will have a direct negative impact on Medicaid access for his constituents, many of whom are Trump supporters, and many of whom believed Trump when he promised to leave Medicaid alone. While Rand Paul was the only other no vote on the bill, a recent Fox News poll showed that Republican voters, especially white men with degrees, oppose the legislation. But the “big, beautiful bill” trudges on, as the Senate convenes on Monday to finalize the 940-page piece of legislation.
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