Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she has been “pretty clear” about her concerns over potential cuts President Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” would make to Medicaid and food benefits for her constituents in Alaska.
In an interview for “CBS Sunday Morning,” Murkowski told CBS News senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell that she hasn’t given any absolute deal-breakers in the Senate legislation — but she’s voiced her reservations about the Medicaid proposals.
“I have not given anybody in the administration an absolute, this is my red line, right?” Because I think it’s important that every step of the way, I communicate where my concerns are,” Murkowski told O’Donnell in the interview airing this weekend.
The reconciliation bill — or “one big, beautiful bill,” as Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress have dubbed it — has passed the House, but remains up for debate in the Senate, where some Republicans are pushing for deeper cuts to Medicaid than the House-passed version allows.
Medicaid is the entitlement program that offers government-backed health care for both low-income Americans and those with disabilities, with the federal government and states splitting the costs. While the House version adds a new work requirement to Medicaid for childless adults, the Senate wants work requirements to expand to parents of older children. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides food benefits to the poorest Americans, and some Senate Republicans are hoping to place more requirements on states.
“So I’ve been pretty clear that when it comes to Medicaid, those cuts that would harm Alaskan beneficiaries, that’s not something that I can take home, right? We have some of the highest health care costs in the country. We have 40% of Alaska’s kids that are on Medicaid. I want to try to do what we can to address certain aspects of our entitlement spending. We’ve got to do that. But doing it with the most vulnerable bearing the brunt of that is not the answer,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from North Dakota, wants the reconciliation bill to pass by the July 4 holiday, but that deadline is quickly approaching.
Watch more of the interview with Sen. Lisa Murkowski on “CBS Sunday Morning” on Sunday, June 22.
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