MAGA Murder Budget Update: Senate Vote Expected Tomorrow
Last chance to reach out to our senators today
Contact all members of Congress:
By phone: (202) 224-3121
By email: Congress.gov
By US mail: Representatives / Senators
By Resistbot: Resist.bot
We will not make a habit of Sunday editions, but given the speed of developments we wanted to send an update about where we are with the MAGA murder budget.
The Senate has finally rolled out the full text of its updates to the bill just after midnight on Saturday morning. After an extended delay waiting for Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) to cast their votes, Republicans ultimately passed the motion to proceed with debate last night 51-49. Supposed Medicaid protectors like Josh Hawley and Susan Collins fell in line.
Murkowski had secured special provisions meant to boost Medicaid payments to Alaska - which earlier today the Senate parliamentarian ruled they violated the Byrd rule. Scott, Lee, and Ron Johnson got an amendment vote on ending 90% federal cost-sharing for new enrollees to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act expansion, which would mean millions more Americans going without health insurance – on top of the 16 million who would lose coverage under the bill as it stands now.
A new Congressional Budget Office estimate indicates the Senate version would increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion.
Democrats forced the reading of the entire 940 page bill on the Senate floor, which is ongoing. Once that finishes sometime this afternoon, we will have at least 10 hours of debate. We are likely to see amendment votes overnight and a vote on final passage during the day Monday. If it passes, which is not yet a sure thing, it would then be sent back to the House, which would have to decide whether to make more changes or vote on the Senate version as is. It is also unclear whether they have the votes in the House, but we are likely to know very soon.
In short, this is crunch time. Here are a few actions to squeeze in while we still can:
Call our senators one more time to let them know we want them to vote no on passing the MAGA murder budget. We can find scripts at 5Calls or here.
For Republican senators, specifically add we want them to oppose Ron Johnson’s proposed amendment further attacking the Medicaid expansion. We can use the following:
“I am furious that Republicans are adding even more Medicaid cuts to this budget. You are already going to cost 16 million people their health insurance, and you want to hurt even more of us to pay for billionaire tax cuts? Along with voting no on final passage, you need to vote no on Senator Johnson’s amendment rolling back federal cost-sharing for new Medicaid enrollees under the ACA. Enough!”
For Democratic senators, let’s praise the decision to force the reading of the full bill on the floor, and let them know we want them to keep objecting to unanimous consent requests and using all procedural tools available to slow MAGA down on Capitol Hill – both with this budget process and with everything else. We can find ideas and language here.
Let’s contact our representatives in the House and let them know the Senate version of the murder budget is even worse than what they passed, and they cannot rubber stamp it.
Let’s join what’s likely to be the LAST phonebank shifts to drive more calls to Congress against the budget before the Senate vote. Together for CA Health and the California Democratic Party will be reaching out to folks in key states to encourage them to speak up TODAY at 1:30PM ET, 3:15PM and 5:00PM ET. We can sign up here.