- yesterday
At a House Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) spoke about the Big Beautiful Bill.
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00:00Yeah, it's interesting how many qualms we're hearing from across the aisle, whether the Senate or the Senators, yes, it is, whether it's Senators or members of the House who don't think this bill is ready to go.
00:14I couldn't agree more. I think it's the most expensive bill in the history of our nation.
00:21I had a town hall this weekend. My constituents have questions about it. I've got a lot of questions about it.
00:27All the reports we're seeing come out have that it's the biggest wealth transfer in our nation's history.
00:33It's the largest effort to kick people off their health care in history.
00:38It's a sweeping assault on nutritionist assistants that's going to have kids going hungry and also without health care.
00:46So I think it's a monstrosity. I don't think it's defensible either morally or economically.
00:51It's supposed to reduce the national debt, and it adds trillions to the national debt.
00:57That's because the real purpose is not debt reduction.
01:00I think it's pretty clear the real purpose is to give tax cuts to billionaires and big business.
01:06In service to this failed economic theory of trickle-down economics, which has proven over half a century to never spur the kind of economic growth
01:17to make up for the deficits that tax cuts for billionaires create.
01:22If Republicans run through these tax cuts, our economy will not magically overperform to make up the lost revenue.
01:30It just doesn't work that way.
01:32We'll see even more income inequality as the rich, the Musks, the Bezos, the Mar-a-Lago millionaires get richer and everybody else gets left behind.
01:43Some of our colleagues say they hate this bill, or they don't like parts of it, but at the end of the day, they have lacked the guts to stand up for the American people,
01:54and they have voted for this travesty of a bill over and over again because the head of their party wants it.
02:02Time and again, we've seen the only Republicans willing to stand up for their constituents in the country are those who are on their way out the door.
02:09So what kind of moral compass does one need to have to think that a millionaire deserves a tax cut, but a working mom should lose her health care?
02:17As Ranking Member Moore suggested, our bills, our budgets make clear what our priorities are.
02:24And what's clear here is that Trump's Republican Party only cares about rich people and large companies.
02:31They don't care about working people. They don't care about kids. They don't care if you need Medicare or SNAP to make ends meet.
02:37This bill is an unconscionable attack on the middle class and on our poorest American neighbors.
02:44It's a 940-page testament to Republican values, and those values are grim.
02:50It's really shocking to see the supporters of this bill trying to justify taking away health care from 17 million people,
02:58kicking 5 million people off SNAP, causing the closure of hundreds of nursing homes, community health centers, and hospitals across the country,
03:07allowing mining and oil drilling on our public lands and in our public forests,
03:12raising energy costs for consumers across the country while adding nearly $4 trillion to the national debt,
03:20so that the mega-rich can get mega-richer.
03:24Who in their right minds thinks this is a good deal for the American people?
03:28For every millionaire that gets a tax cut, 19 people would be kicked off their health care,
03:33and six people will lose their food assistance.
03:36I don't think these measures reflect the values of the hard-working families that I represent in Pennsylvania's Fifth,
03:43and I don't think it's what most Americans want now that we have the details in writing.
03:49And that's why I think this hearing is particularly important,
03:52as this bill has been constructed over the weekend with last-minute additions in their out.
03:59We all need to be reading this bill and not after taking the votes.
04:04This bill puts the government's weight entirely on the side of the wealthy and well-connected.
04:09It values caviar over kids, it values hedge funds over health care, and it values Mar-a-Lago over the middle class.
04:18The health care cuts alone in this bill are breathtaking.
04:22Medicaid, a program that ensures over 90 million Americans, including almost half of all the births in this country,
04:29is on the chopping block.
04:31The bill slashes state funding, imposing work requirements and paperwork traps,
04:36and repealing incentives to expand Medicaid altogether.
04:40And the Republican justification for these Medicaid cuts is both.
04:45As we have heard, as anyone who's looked at it knows,
04:48federal Medicaid does not cover undocumented immigrants.
04:54But it does cover millions of children, including 99% of all foster kids,
04:59which I know is a particular concern for Rep Moore,
05:02almost half the births in this country, and one-third of all kids with cancer.
05:07And that's whose health care coverage is being threatened by this bill.
05:12The work requirements are a particularly cruel hoax.
05:15They don't increase employment.
05:17They just increase the red tape.
05:19And I thought our Republican colleagues were against bureaucracy and red tape.
05:23When Arkansas tried similar work requirements, over 18,000 people lost coverage,
05:29and there was no increase in employment.
05:32This bill mandates similar complicated paperwork requirements
05:37so that a Medicaid recipient has to prove they're doing 80 hours a month of work or community engagement,
05:43even though the vast majority of folks on Medicaid are already working, in school, or caring for a family member.
05:51So even though most Medicaid recipients are working, if they forget to file a form,
05:56if they miss a verification deadline, if their employer fails to respond,
06:01or if their state agency makes a mistake, they get kicked off Medicaid.
06:05It's not that they're not eligible.
06:07It's that the paperwork gets them kicked off.
06:10It's a cruel bureaucratic paperwork trap, not a work incentive.
06:14And that's why the CBO found that these policies won't increase employment,
06:18but they will cause millions to lose their coverage.
06:22When people lose coverage, their illnesses don't disappear.
06:25Their needs don't go away.
06:27They go to the emergency room.
06:29They delay care until it becomes catastrophic.
06:31They miss bills.
06:32They lose their homes to pay for treatment.
06:35Ultimately, people will die due to the loss of coverage.
06:39That's the real world impact of this bill.
06:42But many of our Republican colleagues don't seem to get that.
06:47Mitch McConnell said people will get over it.
06:50Joni Ernst said, and I quote, we're all going to die.
06:53And today, in this meeting, we're hearing statements that show an unfathomable callousness
07:01towards the American people who are going to lose their coverage.
07:04I had at my town hall meeting this weekend parents of kids with disabilities who overwhelmingly rely on this coverage.
07:13And the idea that they could navigate caps on coverage for their kids is simply astonishing.
07:21Plus, we're hearing from every corner that the Medicaid cuts are going to cost hundreds of nursing homes.
07:27We've got a list now of 537 nursing homes that are at risk of closing.
07:33One's in my district.
07:34Two are adjoining.
07:35This is going to cause nursing homes, hospitals, and community health centers to close.
07:40It is really mind-boggling.
07:43We know that more than 60 percent of long-term care residents rely on Medicaid.
07:49But this bill cuts that funding while simultaneously eliminating staffing requirements at our long-term care facilities.
07:56So people aren't going to be able to afford the care.
07:59And the care they get isn't going to be as good as it is now.
08:02That's a recipe for disaster.
08:04We're going to see facilities shutting down and horror stories of abuse, neglect, and poor conditions.
08:10Then there's the gutting of food assistance.
08:12The bill imposes harsh new work requirements for SNAP that would kick millions off the program,
08:18including, as we've heard, families, seniors, veterans, and foster youth.
08:23It turns LIHEAP assistance into countable income.
08:27And for many of our communities, like Chairman Thompson's community, mine,
08:33LIHEAP is absolutely essential for people trying to get through the winter.
08:38It bans using internet bills in utility allowances, and that's an especially egregious cut in the 21st century.
08:45On top of that, states are going to have to start footing part of the SNAP bill for the first time ever.
08:51This is a backdoor cut, and I know my state, as well as I assume many of the others,
08:57are not prepared to take that hit to their budgets.
09:00Like so many provisions in this bill, the SNAP provisions would shift billions of dollars in costs to the states,
09:07in addition to all the paperwork and personnel costs that this bill would add.
09:13For example, when you no longer have automatic registration for school lunches because you have untied it from SNAP,
09:22all of a sudden all of our local school districts are going to have to reengage with an arduous process
09:28to make sure that kids are eligible for school lunches.
09:32We had a round table with our local school districts a couple weeks ago, and they are terrified about this.
09:38At a time when school budgets are under so much stress, all of a sudden we're going to require them to hire dozens of new people
09:45to make sure kids can get lunches and be able to study while they're at school because their stomachs aren't growling.
09:53Multiple analyses have shown that any minimal benefit that we might get from this tax structure
10:01for lower income Americans is going to get eaten up by Trump's tariff wars.
10:07According to a new economic analysis put out yesterday by the Yale Budget Lab,
10:12this bill is actually going to reduce income for the bottom 40% of earners.
10:19A massive chunk of the middle class will actually see their incomes drop as a result of this bill.
10:25Meanwhile, people at the top 1% are going to get a $30,000 tax cut and the top 0.01% will get a $100,000 handout.
10:37So again, every responsible study that is looking at this is showing that we're going to see a wealth transfer
10:43from low-income Americans to the wealthiest among us.
10:48And all of this is going to be paid for with borrowed money.
10:51The bill adds nearly $4 trillion to the debt.
10:54That's not me saying it. It's Moody's, the Wall Street Journal, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
11:00It's going to be the single largest increase to the deficit in American history.
11:05Republicans say the tax cuts will pay for themselves. It's a lie. It always has been.
11:10It was a lie in 1981. It was a lie in 2001. And it was a lie in 2017. It's still a lie today.
11:19The promise of tax cuts for the rich creating jobs and economic growth has never materialized.
11:26And we have the data of half a century to show that.
11:29What we have witnessed is a massive increase in income inequality,
11:33an acceleration of corporate concentration, stagnant wages for workers, jobs shipped overseas,
11:40and an economy that doesn't revolve around Main Street, but around shareholders, Wall Street, and CEOs.
11:48The climate provisions in this big, ugly bill are no better.
11:52It represents a near total rollback of the historic investments in clean energy and environmental protection
11:59that we enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act.
12:03These cuts are going to jeopardize 1.75 million good-paying construction jobs
12:09and billions of dollars in private sector investment that is growing our economy now
12:15with solar, wind, and hydroelectric projects.
12:18We're slamming the brakes with this bill on some incredible economic growth
12:22and ceding energy dominance to China.
12:26Also, our Republican colleagues can placate their fossil fuel donors.
12:31This bill is a brazen handout to polluters.
12:34It has sweetheart deals for the oil, coal, and gas industries that read like they were written by lobbyists.
12:40It mandates lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
12:44threatening one of the last truly pristine ecosystems on Earth.
12:49It opens 4 million acres of public land to coal mining and slashes royalty rates,
12:54a direct subsidy to the oil and gas industry.
12:58And household energy costs are going to go up as a result of this bill.
13:03We've seen two studies already showing that costs for energy in my state, in Pennsylvania, in New York,
13:11are likely to increase 7% to 8%.
13:14In Minnesota, they're likely to increase by 12%, and 16% increase in energy costs for Texas and South Carolina.
13:24This bill not only repeals clean energy tax credits for wind and solar,
13:28imposes a steep excise tax on any new wind or solar project that doesn't comply with restrictions that are designed to be impossible to meet.
13:38This is a particular burden on Pennsylvania,
13:40because Pennsylvania's legislature recently passed a law to help our schools convert to solar energy,
13:47using some of the credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
13:51And this was viewed as a win, win, win, win, because it was good for our construction folks.
13:57It was good for our school districts, because it was lowering their costs of construction and of energy costs moving forward.
14:05And of course, it was good for folks who were concerned about the environment.
14:08So it was a broadly bipartisan bill that we now have school districts that have signed up to get the benefits of that
14:17and to use solar as they undertake needed renovations in our schools.
14:22And now that's all put on hold because of this bill.
14:25You know, we've seen the bill's going to gut tax incentives for clean vehicles
14:32and for purchasing energy-efficient appliances.
14:35For the last year, my office has been holding seminars for consumers so they know how to claim these tax credits.
14:42You know, folks, if you want an electric car under this bill, you better buy it before September,
14:47because it's cutting it off that quickly.
14:49The bill also slashes funding for environmental justice initiatives
14:53that we're finally beginning to address decades of pollution and disinvestment in frontline communities.
14:58And I have many of those in my district, places that are subject to flooding and other environmental harm,
15:04because they were redlined, because they have had the help to address those things.
15:12The bill's not just bad for the environment.
15:14It's a deliberate, coordinated attempt to reverse our progress on the climate crisis.
15:19It's going to cost us jobs.
15:21It's going to cost us economic growth.
15:23And it's going to cost us leadership in the global clean energy race.
15:27Some of us were involved in a roundtable with folks from the U.K. last week,
15:31and one of their business leaders said,
15:33wow, you know, Europe and the U.K. were really ahead of the curve when it comes to clean energy investment and innovation.
15:41But then the U.S. passed that Inflation Reduction Act, and if you heard a giant sucking sound,
15:48it was all the investment coming out of Europe and going to the U.S.
15:52But they said, but now we don't know, because there's too much uncertainty.
15:56It looks like you're going to roll that back.
15:58And we're probably not going to invest in the U.S. again.
16:01So, you know, this is a multi-billion dollar gift to the most polluting industries on the planet.
16:09It is a betrayal of future generations.
16:12And when you add the environmental harm to the harm of adding $4 trillion to the deficit, it's just, it's a betrayal of our kids.
16:24So we've also got issues of the money that's being added to the budget in this bill, especially around immigration.
16:33The dollars that are being sent to private prison contracting companies, billions of dollars.
16:41We know that they're supporting this administration in its claims that they're only going after the worst of the worst.
16:48But certainly the scenes that we're seeing on the ground are telling a completely different story.
16:53We've seen masked agents grabbing hardworking people, not hardened criminals, but people with no criminal past from their workplaces, from court appearances.
17:03The administration has ripped families apart, detaining grandmas and landscapers without notice and without any information about where they're being held,
17:13including disappearing people to countries they've never been to based on tattoos.
17:19U.S. citizens have been mistakenly arrested and we're on track to see more deaths in ICE custody since that information started being publicly reported in 2018.
17:31You know, the reality is it's not the worst of the worst.
17:35According to a recent report from the very conservative Cato Institute, 65% of the people taken by ICE have had no convictions whatsoever.
17:47Clearly, this ICE, etc., is not deporting the worst of the worst.
17:52They're just trying to meet Stephen Miller's quotas, no matter who gets hurt in the process.
17:59So, you know, in addition, we have concerns that this is being done at the expense of legitimate national security and crime-fighting efforts.
18:07What we're seeing on our streets is dystopian, it's un-American, and people, including U.S. citizens, are scared of their own government,
18:14which is not something I ever thought I'd be saying, and it's really horrific to see.
18:19But Americans understand that when an immigrant is denied due process, it's a slippery slope for everyone.
18:26Because if the government doesn't have to prove whether someone's a citizen or not, whether there's a criminal or not, then they can take anyone.
18:35Without the rule of law, who's to say who's a threat to our national security or just a threat to this White House?
18:42So, none of this makes people's lives better, doesn't make our country safer.
18:48We do see our colleagues trying to rush through a 940-page bill that touches everything from taxes and healthcare to border security and defense spending.
18:57No one has had the time to read all of it or review all the changes it makes.
19:02Senate released the text on, I think, early Saturday morning, made major revisions as recently as noon.
19:09And there are real consequences when you rush through bills.
19:12We saw that with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
19:16There were major drafting errors in the scribbled provisions in the margins of that bill that it took years to sort out.
19:24You know, when the House voted for the first time on this bill, many members of the Republican Party said they hadn't read the text
19:31and began complaining about the provisions weeks later when they finally took the time to do that job.
19:37So, here we are again with a bill that is almost a thousand pages long.
19:41New material added overnight and this morning.
19:44Aren't our colleagues, our Republican colleagues, offended that the Senate is trying to jam this bill down your throats?
19:52That you're being told, just go ahead and hold your nose and vote for it.
19:57Don't worry about what's in it.
19:59Because the President wants it, so you just have to roll over.
20:05This is the largest spending bill in history.
20:08It costs more than the CARES Act, the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Bill, and the CHIPS Act combined.
20:14And it's not paid for.
20:16Republicans are going to make the country borrow another $4 trillion, not for clean energy, not to promote health care, not to promote housing, but to pay for tax cuts.
20:29It doesn't sit well with my constituents.
20:31It shouldn't sit well with yours either.
20:33If this bill is passed and it's sent to President Trump, then our Republican colleagues will be responsible for the most expensive and wasteful bill in our nation's history.
20:44The biggest transfer of wealth, the biggest loss of health coverage that our country has ever experienced.
20:50And I think it's a tremendous failure of leadership that despite all the opposition to the bill, despite its cost, despite the major fiscal implications,
20:59that the country is being sent off a cliff.
21:03And watching this bill advance is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
21:07It doubles down on policies we all know will leave our country worse off.
21:11It's a roadmap to a sicker, hungrier, and more unequal America.
21:16Hospitals will close.
21:17People won't get the care they need.
21:19Our kids won't get the food they need.
21:21And the rich will get richer, no matter the cost, to everyone else.
21:25This is a mortgage of our future.
21:27It's putting us deeper in debt.
21:29It's a legislative failure.
21:30It's a moral failure.
21:31And it should not become law.
21:33You will be shocked to know I have some questions.
21:36Ranking Member Boyle.
21:39Do we have a distributional analysis from CBO for this bill?
21:44Given the Senate changes, we do not.
21:49Even with JCT, they were only able to do distribution analysis just on the tax portion.
21:56But we do know from previous work CBO did, the totality of this bill, when it left the House,
22:02finds that the bottom one-third of Americans will actually be poorer as a result of this bill,
22:09again, when you analyze it in terms of all of its components.
22:13The bottom third of households, you're talking about households making $55,000 a year or less.
22:20They would actually be worse off as a result of this legislation and with the bulk of the benefit going to the top 1%.
22:29Now, the Senate changes will impact somewhat that distribution analysis.
22:37All indications are it will actually get worse and not better.
22:42I know we've seen a new budget analysis from the Yale Budget Lab.
22:48The pale pink is the House version of the bill and the redder one is the Senate version.
22:54And it shows that the bottom 20% of American earners are going to have a household income that is almost 3% less than it is now,
23:06while the wealthiest among us are going to be about 2% wealthier.
23:10Everybody is getting more if they start with more.
23:13And I would seek unanimous consent to enter the Yale Budget Analysis in the record.
23:18Without objection.
23:20Can you tell us a little bit, there's the carve outs that were put in the bill for Alaska specifically.
23:38Can you speak to that or is that something for Mr. Pallone?
23:41I can't say I'm an expert on Alaska and what may or may not have been asserted at the last second.
23:49You know, I remember there was a piece of legislation 15 years ago famous for the Cornhusker kickback.
23:55So this is perhaps the Eskimo kickback.
23:58But that would be the extent of my knowledge on this provision.
24:03Although I would say it would be a pretty good reason for us to actually have the final text in front of us
24:08and have a chance to analyze all of the remarkable changes the Senate was making on the fly minute by minute,
24:17rather than rushing to a vote on the most significant piece of legislation in decades.
24:24Sure.
24:25And I mean, I think I heard at my town hall from some of my constituents who were really concerned.
24:31They were calling it the caribou kickback.
24:33But they thought it was, you know, basically unfair.
24:36And as someone who also represents Philadelphia, maybe we should go for the soft pretzel or the cheesesteak kickback.
24:42You know, what's sauce for the goose here?
24:44We've been hearing a lot of nonsense about how these tax cuts are going to pay for themselves.
24:49Can you help us better understand why that's not true?
24:54Tax cuts have never paid for themselves, as even right-leaning economists who've testified before the Budget Committee have acknowledged.
25:04Targeted tax cuts can have some stimulative effect, but even then, never so much that they entirely make up the lost revenue.
25:13And frankly, we've had a 45-year experiment in this.
25:18If tax cuts paid for themselves, then our national debt wouldn't be $36 trillion.
25:24The bulk of the added debt since 2001 has actually come from four different rounds of major tax cuts.
25:312001, 2003, their full extension about or mostly full extension about a decade later, and then the 2017 TCJA,
25:43all told that combines for more than $10 trillion in missing revenue that would have been there had we just kept in place tax rates as they were in the 1990s under President Clinton.
25:58I know we've heard some concern from our Republican colleagues that we have to pass these tax cuts or else middle-class families will get slammed.
26:06I think it was a concern for Mr. Norman, although he said, we've got plenty of time.
26:11That doesn't happen until the end of the year. We could pass a bill to address that.
26:14There was an interesting graph that came out from the Joint Committee on Taxation today that shows that if we did keep the tax cuts for middle-class families,
26:25that would only, and I use the word only advisedly, add $1.6 trillion to the debt.
26:32It's keeping them for all the high-income folks that adds $3.3 trillion to the debt.
26:39And then, as someone has mentioned already, the House and Senate bills actually added more tax cuts than are in the 2017 package.
26:47So that's how we end up with $4 or more trillion in additional debt.
26:55Ranking Member Moore, we heard a little bit about the child tax credit before, and I think it's important that, I mean, I'd like it if you could address a little bit.
27:05We had an expanded child tax credit during the COVID crisis, which actually did put more money in the pockets of those who need it most.
27:15And it was shown to reduce childhood poverty in this country by something like 40%.
27:20That's not what we're talking about in this bill, is it?
27:23I know there's some changes to the child tax credit in this bill, but that doesn't reach the same people, or it's not likely to have the same effect, is it?
27:30No, ma'am. No, Ms. Scanlon.
27:33Ms. Scanlon, this is not the same old child tax credit that reduced poverty among children by 40%.
27:42And indeed, it's a child tax credit that is more stingy as it left the Senate than what was reduced in the House.
27:52And what it will do, it's not refundable, which means even if a married couple, both working at minimum wage,
28:02worked full time, they probably would not meet the $30,000 threshold to get the full child tax credit.
28:11So it's not about laziness or not working.
28:15This child tax credit would endure to the benefit of wealthier people.
28:20If you're making $400,000 and your income, you get your income from dividends,
28:27you'd be eligible for the child tax credit.
28:31Whereas there'll be 17 million children whose parents don't earn enough money or any money that will be left behind.
28:42So you think of a child tax credit as something that we ought to, you know, that's an admirable thing to add to a bill
28:50when we think about the cost of children, the added expense.
28:55The group called the True Cost of Living says that when you have a child, that automatically adds $19,000 worth of costs to your family.
29:06So certainly those families at the lower end of the income spectrum who could use it will not receive it.
29:13That it seems to be a theme with this bill that in every instance where there's a choice to be made, the haves get more.
29:21So with the child tax credit, it's going to give more benefits to people who already have some means with this salt tax deduction that we've heard so much about.
29:31You know, we're not talking about people who get the standard deduction.
29:34It's only people who have enough real estate that they're paying a lot of taxes who benefit from that.
29:39You know, that the rich get more tax cuts and more benefits.
29:43So it just feels like it's an overriding theme throughout this.
29:47I wanted to point out the clock is working correctly.
29:52It's now going for 30 minutes, I think 26 minutes.
29:56Okay.
29:57So I'd like you to...
29:59I will keep moving along.
30:02Okay, sure.
30:04I did have another question for Reps Moore and Pallone.
30:10We've heard so much about the work requirements in this bill for Medicaid or SNAP, but particularly Medicaid, being necessary to address fraud.
30:21But I was doing a lot of research this weekend, and every time we hear about a big Medicaid fraud case, it's not the people who are the recipients of Medicaid who are the ones committing the fraud.
30:35It's the insurance companies, it's the medical providers, it's the doctors, it's the healthcare systems that are committing billions worth of fraud.
30:49How do the work requirements on recipients address the bulk of Medicaid fraud?
30:55Well, the report that came out that talked about fraud, as you said, I think it was from CMS, and it basically was talking about the insurance companies.
31:07It wasn't the people themselves, so that's obviously clear.
31:11To put it in simplest terms, I think, what this paperwork does, right, is it makes you file as much as once a month to keep getting your Medicaid and say that you're working, right?
31:23But you can, and you know, the people that are actually working, it's a burden because they have to do it every month, and they may miss it, and then they're out, right?
31:31But I think the bigger problem is the fact that if you want an exception to that because you're disabled, because you're pregnant, or the various categories they put in, those are extremely strict, right?
31:43So let's use an example, like if you're disabled and you want to get a Social Security disability, right, that's a very stringent test, right?
31:52There are a lot of people who don't meet that test, but still are disabled and can't work or can't work enough, right?
32:00Those people, the way I see the definition, they're out, right?
32:05So what they've done is they put all this paperwork and burdens on people that even if you think you can qualify an exception, you're not going to be able to, and that's what happened in Georgia.
32:17That's why in Georgia you had this three or four hundred thousand people that were eligible for Medicaid expansion, but only 4,500 actually qualified, not because they weren't, they actually weren't able to work.
32:30Maybe you're taking care of a relative, right?
32:32And that's a category that's in there, but how do you actually prove that, you know, because these are so stringent that that's legitimate?
32:41I mean, this is the problem.
32:43I agree with everything that he said, Ms. Scanlon.
32:46I would just add, we've had an example of this in our recent experience when we had an expansion of Medicaid during COVID, and people were asked, told they had to re-up in order to be made eligible for Medicaid.
33:02Seventy percent, seven-zero, 70% of the people who fell off of Medicaid were people that fell off because they didn't keep up with the paperwork.
33:13They didn't notice, and they were eligible.
33:18And so I think that this bill, very cynically, is really claiming a trillion dollars worth of savings just by frustrating people who may otherwise be eligible by having them on this treadmill of eligibility.
33:38Well, it does seem like an area for reduction of regulations that maybe our colleagues could agree with us about.
33:47You know, I think any of us who've done constituent services work know certainly Social Security.
33:53People get denied on their first round.
33:55They have to appeal.
33:56We deal with this all the time.
33:58We saw the same things that you did, ranking member, with respect to people who were kicked off and having to try to work with them to get them back on.
34:06So I am concerned, and the CBO seems to have affirmed, that it's not that it's people who are not eligible getting kicked off.
34:14It's eligible people who won't be able to meet the requirements.
34:17But I'm more concerned about the fact that if we really want to address abuse, the billions of dollars that is going to insurance companies, to medical device manufacturers or distributors, etc.,
34:31then it's a real problem that this president has fired the inspectors general who go after that fraud and have been very successful in bringing down, you know, major abusers, including some members of the Senate.
34:45And that there's now a proposal in the 2016 fiscal year budget process to slash funding for the general accounting office, which also works on cutting that kind of fraud and abuse.
34:59Ranking member Pallone, we've been hearing about how this bill is going to increase energy costs.
35:06Can you tell us why that's happening?
35:08We just saw this new language on Saturday, and we're seeing that, you know, everyone's constituents are going to see higher costs, 5 to 16, 17 percent.
35:18Well, in general, what we find, you know, I talked before about all of the above, which is my philosophy, right?
35:26You want to do fossil fuels, you want to have nuclear, you want to have clean energy, you know, so be it.
35:32I'm not, you can ask Chairman Guthrie, I've never been opposed to any of those, right?
35:38But the problem is if you cut off the clean energy, which is, you know, the wind, the solar, whatever, then inevitably, and you put the burden more on fossil fuels, right?
35:50Well, right now, those things are more expensive, right?
35:53I mean, particularly coal, for example, which everything the Republicans have done in the committee in the last six months has been to try to encourage coal.
36:03Right now, that's more costly, right?
36:05So just in general, by cutting your clean energy arm off, which is essentially what this does, you're raising prices in general, right?
36:14In addition to that, as you mentioned, you know, and again, you know, part of this is, my understanding is a lot of these things were in that last, I don't know what you call it,
36:23I'll call it the manager's amendment at the end, which, you know, you know, I hope I'm, I hope I know what was in it, because frankly, it's been difficult.
36:31At 12 o'clock, we got them. So I don't think they call it the manager's amendment in the Senate, but whatever they call it, right?
36:37That, from what I understand, just wiped out almost all of the credits, if you will, for any kind of clean energy, right?
36:46And they did, I think, have a tax on clean energy, which they got rid of, thank God.
36:52So we went from encouraging clean energy to actually taxing clean energy, which now the tax is gone.
36:59But I mean, all these things, you know, and we did so many things to try to help people pay their energy bills, too, a lot of that, you know?
37:06So it's just, it's just an across the board increased costs, in my opinion, primarily because they've eliminated any help or any movement towards clean energy and moved in the opposite direction.
37:18It certainly doesn't seem like something that looks towards the future.
37:22We have heard quite a bit with respect to the Medicaid cuts about senators being so concerned about the impact of those Medicaid cuts on rural hospitals,
37:33that they added a fund to try to prop up rural hospitals.
37:37I don't have rural hospitals, but I have urban hospitals that are frontline hospitals and have been really challenged.
37:43We've lost several in recent years.
37:46So can you talk about the impact of these Medicaid cuts on urban frontline hospitals?
37:51Well, first of all, this rural hospital fund is not going to be adequate, right?
37:55I mean, it's paltry, right, in terms of the actual monies available.
38:00So when you make it that so many more people who are on Medicaid lose their Medicaid,
38:07or people that are on the Affordable Care Act, you know, lose their health insurance.
38:12Now you have these hospitals, a lot of them in rural areas, but now you're talking about urban areas.
38:17Justice may be even more dependent on Medicaid, ACA, you know.
38:24In those cases, by making those people now uninsured, they have to absorb all the costs of the uncompensated care.
38:33And some of these hospitals, disproportionate hair hospitals, safety net hospitals,
38:38are overwhelmingly dependent on, you know, Medicaid, you know, exchange policies, whatever,
38:45as opposed to, you know, insurance that you get on the job.
38:49And so what do they do, right? They don't have the money.
38:51Well, this is all third-party payments that they've now lost.
38:54Well, they either raise costs, which means the burden goes on people that have insurance on the job
39:01with increased premiums or increased co-pays, but more likely not.
39:07More likely, they just don't have the funding, right?
39:10And so what states have done is many states give them direct payments, like in my state,
39:16to help some of those hospitals that could fail, right?
39:20Or they also depend on the provider tax.
39:22The Senate devastated the provider tax, because the provider tax, at least in the House,
39:27was made at the current rate.
39:30You couldn't increase it because of inflation.
39:32That was bad enough.
39:33But in the Senate bill, they actually decreased the provider tax, even if you already had it.
39:38So if you're charging 6% now, you know, and they're going to make it, you know,
39:43I don't have the actual number again, it'll go down to 5, it'll go down to 4, it'll go down to 3,
39:47to the point where it doesn't even exist anymore.
39:49And even though you say, well, okay, you don't have to pay the tax,
39:52the bottom line is the way that formula distributed, as you reduce the provider tax,
39:58they get less money in the hospitals back.
40:00And that's what's devastating.
40:02Any kind of safety net hospital, whether it's rural or urban.
40:07Ranking member Craig, I have a couple questions for you.
40:10Yeah.
40:11I'm finishing with the last one.
40:15Yes.
40:16Understood.
40:17Understood.
40:18I'm really concerned about the impact of this on our schools,
40:23especially coming as it did after the administration impounded funding for the local food purchase programs.
40:31Can you talk about the impact on both schools, kids who may be hungry,
40:36and our farmers who are now not getting the payments they were expecting?
40:40Yeah, this is, it's going to be devastating on top of the administration and DOGE pushing back
40:46on some of the appropriated funding for those farm to school programs across the country.
40:51This is an added layer because the truth is that most people who rely on SNAP
40:57as a supplemental way of putting food on the table are folks who are already working
41:03and folks with children.
41:05And so our children are going to be hungrier, and as we know,
41:08the impact on learning when kids are hungry is very substantial.
41:14You also asked a few minutes ago about the contours of the agreement that came back from the Senate.
41:20We're all still learning that framework, but as it relates to the cost shift to states,
41:25my understanding is because the car bout that was attempted for the state of Alaska
41:30could not pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian.
41:34They had to go back to the drawing board, and I think about just how ridiculous the policy sounds
41:40of now we're going to let D.C., Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon,
41:48including Alaska, because one state didn't pass muster,
41:52we're going to let them all get two bites at the apple of delaying implementation of the cost shift
41:58because they are the states with the highest error rates in our country.
42:03If I were on the other side of the aisle, and this came back to me from my Republican colleagues in the Senate,
42:10I'd be calling every single one of them saying, what the hell are you thinking?
42:13Well, I think I may have to renew my request with Ranking Member Boyle that we go for the cheesesteak car about that,
42:21because clearly we, the policies just aren't passing muster here.
42:26So, appreciate all of your testimony, and I will yield back.