Pennsylvania Democrats stood on the Capitol steps in Harrisburg and called on Republicans to oppose cuts to entitlement programs that are working their way through Congress.
“They don’t want to talk about this massive negative impact it’s going to have on the quality of life of so many Pennsylvanians,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa said. “It’s not too late for them to join us, to be part of the discussion that says ‘no.’”
The proposed federal spending cuts are part of what Republicans call their “Big, Beautiful Bill,” a budget reconciliation package that includes much of President Donald Trump’s agenda. The bill has already passed the U.S.House, and can pass the U.S. Senate with a simple majority vote, which Republicans can muster without Democratic support.
The bill would renew Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire and increase funding for immigration enforcement. To offset the costs, it includes dramatic spending cuts, especially to entitlement programs. Though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found it could add $3.8 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
Democrats in Harrisburg say the bill’s spending cuts will have dramatic impacts in Pennsylvania. They’ve warned it could result in hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians losing Medicaid coverage, and tens of thousands losing access to food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The state, they say, does not have the funds to make up for that.
Sen. Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia), the minority chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said there is little room to make up for potential federal cuts with state funding.
“Knowing the state budget the way I know it, we know that we have no capacity to backfill any of those cuts,” he told the Capital-Star.
According to the left-leaning think tank Pennsylvania Policy Center, the bill includes roughly $600 billion in cuts to Medicaid spending over 10 years, and would institute new work requirements for people covered through the program. They say the result could mean more than half a million Pennsylvanians would lose health care.
Currently, around 23% of Pennsylvanians, or around 3 million people, are covered by Medicaid, according to the state Department of Human Services.
Rep. Arvind Venkat, (D-Allegheny), who is also an emergency physician,said before the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid, 20% of his patients didn’t have health insurance.
“They would come into the emergency department too late for me to treat them, and that is a real thing,” he said. The reason some gave him was the fear of medical debt that they’d accumulate because they were uninsured.
He worries that will happen again if more people lose insurance
“We need to call out the cynicism from our Republican colleagues in Congress. On the one hand they’re saying they don’t want to take coverage from anybody,” Venkat said. “But then they’re happy to brag that they’re going to save $1.7 trillion in decreased federal funding. And the only way that happens is if people lose insurance or stop seeking healthcare when they need it.”
The bill’s Republican defenders say that the cuts are the result of eliminating fraud and waste, and will ultimately reduce spending to help bring a ballooning budget back in line.
Republican Sen. Dave McCormick did not respond to questions from the Capital-Star, but addressed the bill at a televised debate with Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.
He said entitlement spending has been on the rise, and attributed that to an uptick of claims by people for whom benefits were never intended.
“Those are working-age men without dependents, and those are illegal immigrants in a number of cases,” McCormick said. “So what I’m arguing for is that we need to cut out the use of those programs … by people for whom they weren’t designed.”
The reconciliation bill would also cut SNAP spending by nearly $300 billion, according to the Pennsylvania Policy Center, by reducing the federal government’s share of spending. It would also expand work requirements. As it stands, parents raising dependent children under 18 are not required to meet them, but the bill would lower the age of qualifying dependents to 7. People 55 and older are also not required to meet work requirements, but the bill would change that to 65 and up.
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Val Arkoosh has warned that 140,000 Pennsylvanians could lose access to the food assistance program with the changes to work requirements. According to the Department’s most recent data, in 2023, around 2 million Pennsylvanians received SNAP benefits every month.
“This bill would be the largest cut ever to food assistance in U.S. history,” Costa said.
He added that the bill could mean cuts to the Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which pays farmers to provide fresh food for seniors and people who receive Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutritional assistance programs.
Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia), the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, called on Republicans to join his party in opposition.
“I think we have an opportunity to stop this, but the problem is it’s only Democrats out here,” he said.
Spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) and Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) did not respond to questions from the Capital-Star.
As it stands, the U.S. Senate is likely to make changes to the bill before returning it to the House. A number of Senate Republicans have raised concerns over how much the bill could add to the deficit.
Populist Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) raised concerns about cuts to Medicaid, which he called “morally wrong and political suicide.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro also warned of a steep impact if the House version of the bill is passed. He said that it could impact not just patients, but hospitals that rely on Medicaid funds.
“We’ve got 25 rural hospitals that right now are operating on a deficit that likely would have to shutter if these Medicaid cuts go in effect,” Shapiro said at a press conference earlier this week in Harrisburg.
“It is certainly my hope that our federal representatives wouldn’t vote for something that takes something away from Pennsylvania students or Pennsylvania seniors and everybody in between,” he added.
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: [email protected].
