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Unidentified testifier tells House Committee on Budget Democrats bill would strip health care from 17,000,000 people
Summary
An unnamed testifier told the House Committee on Budget Democrats that a pending bill would cause 17,000,000 Americans to lose health coverage, impose large Medicare cuts, and reduce SNAP and other programs while funding roughly $5,000,000,000,000 in tax cuts largely for the wealthy.
An unidentified testifier told the House Committee on Budget Democrats that a pending bill would remove health coverage for 17,000,000 people and strip nutrition support from millions more, and urged lawmakers to reject it.
"The health care of 17000000 people who have it today and may lose it by the end of the week, that's all on the line," the testifier said, citing a Congressional Budget Office estimate and warning that the outcome could hinge on a single vote. The witness said the bill previously "passed the first time" in the House "by 1 vote" and was passed in the Senate "just an hour ago" also "by 1 vote."
The speaker said the CBO had confirmed the 17,000,000 figure and offered a breakdown: "Roughly half of that is due to the largest Medicaid cuts in American history," and the other half from allowing certain Affordable Care Act tax credits and provisions to expire. The witness also warned that deficit-financed tax changes would trigger automatic Medicare reductions, saying, "there have to be 4% Medicare cuts. That's over $500,000,000,000 worth of cuts to Medicare."
The testimony listed further program reductions the speaker associated with the bill, including "the largest cuts to SNAP in American history," cuts to higher-education programs and Head Start, and said those cuts still would not fully pay for "the over $5,000,000,000,000 in tax cuts that mostly go to the hyper wealthy." The witness framed the legislation as increasing the national debt and criticized those advocating the bill for adding to the deficit.
The testifier repeatedly emphasized public opposition, saying poll results show Americans oppose the bill "by a roughly 2 to 1 margin," and closed by urging lawmakers to block the measure: "Let's kill this bill." The witness concluded testimony and yielded back.
