President of the Mike Johnson room, R-La., Joined (from left to right) by the whip of the majority of Tom Emmer room, R-minn., And the head of the majority of the Steve Scalise room, R-La., Speaks to the journalists of the Capitol in Washington, on April 8, 2025.
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP
The country’s democratic governors sound the alarm on a republican plan which, according to them, would leave millions of people without access to health care.
A bill written by the Republicans of the Chamber requires hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts and stages to make more difficult to register or stay in Medicaid, the program which offers health coverage for low and average income households. Among the modifications are stricter eligibility conditions and work requirements, the reports of the Associated Press.
The non -partisan congress budget office estimates that at least 8.6 million people would lose health insurance coverage by 2034 with the cuts and the modifications proposed in Medicaid. The Republicans also offered cuts to the additional nutrition aid program (SNAP).
The 23 Democratic governors have signed a declaration saying that “the reductions proposed by the Republicans would be disastrous – to snatch the quality, the affordable health care of families, forcing rural hospitals to close their doors and causing budgetary chaos across the country”. The declaration also indicates that the idea that states will be able to fill the cuts with state resources is “simply inaccurate and impossible”.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear speaks during the Semaor World Economy Summit 2025 in Conrad Washington on April 23 in Washington, DC.
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In an interview Morning editionGovernor Andy Beshear of Kentucky, one of the governors who signed the Declaration, described the Bill of the Republicans a “bad plan that will harm families” and warned the Republicans that they would face an electoral backlash.
Beshear also discussed the dependence of his state with regard to Medicaid, where the sections on the program will do the most harm and how Democrats can push the GOP while being completely out of power in Washington.
This interview was slightly modified for length and clarity.
Strengths of the interview
Michel Martin: So what are your greatest concerns that this bill should become law? How do you see that it takes place in your condition? What are your three tops?
Governor Andy Beshear: My biggest concerns are people who need health care coverage will lose it. Medicaid covers the people we love the most, our parents and our children. Half of Kentucky children are covered by Medicaid, and 70% of our long -term care costs are covered by Medicaid.
And so when the analysis that comes out of this bill shows that millions of people are losing their health care. A set of analyzes has put up to eight million and a half. It is almost double the whole population of my state. This means that children will lose health care. This means that the elderly will lose health care. And that means that families will find it difficult to catch up with these dollars and make up for these care.
Now Medicaid is something that also leads and feeds rural health care. And if you remove the coverage for millions of people, you remove significant income in these hospital systems. So what we will see are layoffs. We will see closures and we will see people who live in rural America in front of driving hours just to see a doctor.
And then finally, the cuts to break are just nasty and cruel. You know, my faith tells me that there should be enough food for everyone. The miracle of fish and breads is in each book of the Gospel. And in a country where we cultivate food for all our employees, a program like Snap simply ensures that we do not have hungry children, that we have no hungry families, and that in the end, everyone has the basic food they need to become healthy and enter this workforce.
Martin: The Republicans therefore support two things. The first is that there is a lot of fraud and waste in Medicaid. And the second is that the program spread beyond what it was intended for. And if you approach these things, it will preserve the program for people who really need them. What do you say about this?
Beshear: If you fear that there is fraud and abuse, there are units that are already there which go after bad suppliers. I have led one. About all general prosecutors have one. And if you want to find fraud, better finance these units and you will get these results. But what this plan is trying to do is add loads to those who are on Medicaid to fill the forms more often, to check the right box, to just create more challenges so that someone does not fill up properly and that they will lose the coverage for a certain period of time. This is what I also fear that this administration tries to do on Social Security by closing the offices and closing the call center and making fixed income obstacles of one or two to go to an office and not have the right forms. It is a just effort to make more difficult for people who already qualify to get the health care they need.
Martin: There are therefore people in the Republican Party who wanted more aggressive cups in Medicaid who think that these cuts are not far enough and the things they wanted are not in this bill, like, for example, the limits per capita of Medicaid spending. This therefore represents a compromise from their point of view. Are there things that Democrats should be ready to consider to respond to their concerns?
Beshear: I think you should always be ready to consider a plan that exists. But the harder Republicans would have almost completely eliminated rural health care. You look at the rural hospital systems which are the second largest employer of most of the counties in which they are after public school systems. Many of them have up to 40% of their total income in Medicaid. The main bounds in Medicaid, even this plan, threaten that rural health care. And I think rural Americans should be able to see a doctor, should be able to go to a clinic, should be able to see a nurse practitioner in their own communities. And so what I would say to these hard liners is to go out and talk to the people of your communities. They are not for that. People understand Medicaid in a different way from what they did 20 years ago. They realize how important it is for their local economy and their families.
Martin: Given the control of the Republican Party over the two chambers of the Congress and the White House, is there really something that Democrats can do beyond the issue of declarations like that that Democratic governors have done for stopping this?
Beshear: We can speak and we can talk to each other, just like all Americans. It is a very bad plan that will harm families. And when you look at everything, survey numbers as I hear in communities, they will react and react negatively to this republican plan. This will cost the Republicans not only in swing districts, but in many districts, their seats. And so I hope they don’t. I hope they don’t do so to preserve health care for families. But if it takes the electoral pressure, then too bad.
The radio version of this story was published by Arezou Rezvani. The digital version was published by Treye Green.
