Kaine warns 267,000 in Virginia will lose health insurance under 'Big, Ugly Bill'

bluefield – U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., is warning that 267,000 residents of Virginia could lose their health insurance coverage under the budget bill passed by House Republicans Thursday.

Kaine, who spoke with Virginia reporters during his weekly media briefing Thursday, labeled the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” the “Big Ugly Bill” instead, arguing that it will cause great harm to low-income families across the state of Virginia.

The Republican-controlled U.S. House passed the bill early Thursday morning by a vote of 215-214. Kaine said the U.S. Senate will now get a chance to make a number of changes to the budget bill which he said will negatively impact low-and-middle income citizens.

“What does the bill do? It makes cuts of more than $700 billion in Medicaid over a number of years,” Kaine said. “It makes over $300 billion of cuts in food assistance programs to low-income families and kids. This is going to hurt Virginians very, very much. Just the Medicaid piece — the estimate is about 267,000 Virginians will lose Medicaid health care coverage as a result. I ain’t gonna let that happen. I’m going to do everything possible to beat this punishment of low-and-middle income people to provide tax breaks to the wealthiest.”

Although Democrats are also in the minority in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, Kaine said he is confident that the budget bill will still be modified and changed in the Senate, and will then be sent back to the House.

“I do think the bill that will come out of the Senate will look a lot different from the bill that come over to us from the House,” Kaine said. “And that will put it back over in the House to see if they can accept the form of the bill that comes out of the Senate. We will have that opportunity. We are going to go on a week long Memorial Day recess, and then the Senate will take this bill up between the end of the recess and the Fourth of July. Then the thought is the bill will go back over to the House. It will be different. I do think we will be able to amend it in some significant form.”

Kaine said the budget bill would not have passed the U.S. House had it not been for the death Wednesday of U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat. Connolly passed away Wednesday at the age of 75.

“You know it is kind of eerie to think that the House bill passed by one vote,” Kaine said. “Had Gerry Connolly not died yesterday morning, he would have been there. He would have voted no and the bill would have failed. It passed by one vote. If he had voted against it, it would have been a tie. And there is no vice president to break a tie in the House. And that will be a real motivator for me when the Senate takes up this bill.”

Kaine said he and Connolly were good friends.

“Gerry was such a close friend,” Kaine said. “We really connected when I was on city council and mayor of Richmond and he was on the board of supervisors and then chairman of the board in Fairfax. And we worked on local government issues and then when I was lieutenant governor and governor, we worked on a lot of things together.”

Kaine also addressed the shooting death of two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the troubling rise of anti-semitism in the United States. The two were shot and killed while leaving an event at a Jewish museum, and the suspect yelled, “Free, free Palestine” after he was arrested, police told the Associated Press.

“Second thing this shooting last night in D.C. of these two young Israeli staffers was really horrific,” Kaine said. “We were on the floor very late last night in the Senate voting and the word went around the room like a lightning bolt that hit. So many thoughts. First just the anti-semitism of this and we need to be reminded of the existence of anti-semitism. Here or in the world or anywhere incidents like this really remind me of it.”

Kaine said too many people are blaming others for things that they have no control over.

“To commit violence against two individuals and to sort of blame them for what is happening thousands of miles away, it’s unforgivable really,” Kaine said. “And we have to get out of the collective blame business.”

House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package, with Speaker Mike Johnson defying the skeptics and unifying his ranks to muscle President Donald Trump’s priority bill to approval Thursday.

With last-minute concessions and stark warnings from Trump, the Republican holdouts largely dropped their opposition to salvage the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that’s central to the GOP agenda. The House launched debate before midnight and by dawn the vote was called, 215-214, with Democrats staunchly opposed. It next goes to the Senate, with long negotiations ahead.

“To put it simply, this bill gets Americans back to winning again,” said Johnson, R-La.

The outcome caps an intense time on Capitol Hill, with days of private negotiations and public committee hearings, many happening back-to-back, around-the-clock. Republicans insisted their sprawling 1,000-page-plus package was what voters sent them to Congress — and Trump to the White House — to accomplish. They believe it will be “rocket fuel,” as one put it during debate, for the uneasy U.S. economy.

Trump himself demanded action, visiting House Republicans at Tuesday’s conference meeting and hosting GOP leaders and the holdouts for a lengthy session Wednesday at the White House. Before the vote, the administration warned in a pointed statement that failure “would be the ultimate betrayal.”

After the legislation’s passage, Trump posted on social media: “Thank you to every Republican who voted YES on this Historic Bill! Now, it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work.”

The Senate hopes to wrap up its version by the Fourth of July holiday.

Central to the package is the GOP’s commitment to extending some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks they engineered during Trump’s first term in 2017, while temporarily adding new ones he campaigned on during his 2024 campaign, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay, car loan interest and others.

To make up for some of the lost tax revenue, the Republicans focused on changes to Medicaid and the food stamps program, largely by imposing work requirements on many of those receiving benefits. There’s also a massive rollback of green energy tax breaks from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.

Additionally, the package tacks on $350 billion in new spending, with about $150 billion going to the Pentagon, including for the president’s new “ Golden Dome” defense shield, and the rest for Trump’s mass deportation and border security agenda.

All told, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 8.6 million fewer people would have health care coverage and 3 million less people a month would have SNAP food stamps benefits with the proposed changes.

The CBO said the tax provisions would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, it said.

Contact Charles Owens at

cowens@bdtonline.com

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