Making America Gross Again: Big Fugly Bill Hits the Senate Floor

[NB: check the byline, thanks. Updates will be added at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

Trump’s big ugly bill will be up for a vote in the Senate this morning.

It takes money from hungry children and gives it to the already rich as Marcy has previously said, and the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities has quantified.

But this bill is a mortal menace to many Americans because of the bill’s cuts to Medicaid.

ER doctor McNadoMD spelled out the revolting death threats this bill poses:

EMTALA: Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986. They want to ditch 39-year-old legislation which assures Americans obtain

— a medical screening examination (MSE);
— are stabilized with an emergency medical condition;
— are transferred or accepted as a patient as appropriate and needed.

What are we left with if the GOP Senate knocks off EMTALA?

We already lost so many health care professionals because of COVID and have yet to replace them. COVID also cost this nation hospitals, thanks in no small part to right-wing refuseniks who rejected vaccines and masks. Rural hospitals were at risk of closure before COVID; 19 were closed in 2019. A net 50 rural hospitals were closed between 2017 and 2023.

We simply don’t have enough health care professionals or hospitals BEFORE the damage this bill’s cuts could wreak.

My 94-year-old father-in-law, a veteran, died last August. He ended up in the ER more than three times inside his last 18 months because his nursing home couldn’t handle his needs — basically a soft form of eviction until he was stabilized and returned to the home. This happened in a small town where the resources for his care were limited. If the local hospital closed, he’d have simply been evicted and died.

But I suspect the GOP doesn’t give a shit about lifelong GOP voters once they’re as elderly as my FIL was, without the kind of money to burn on political donations. They certainly don’t care about veterans. The GOP congressional caucus has become the death panels they warned us about.

And who pays for the unpaid ER visits — before the hospital goes bankrupt? We who have private insurance do, through increases to our premiums as hospitals increase overall charges to absorb the losses. This is an invisible tax on us, where Medicaid is fully visible.

In other words this is a definite death sentence for a group of Americans and legal residents who have kidney failure.

I don’t have words for this, but this is reality.

This is a real massacre being staged in the Senate, Kellyanne.

Across America especially in smaller cities and towns, Americans are going to face increasing poverty, illness, and death if this big fugly bill passes.

~ ~ ~

I need to get this post up so that you can see the problem and start working the phones and emails. I’ll continue to add to this post for a bit because you need to read what this ER doctor says about the bill’s likely impact if it passes.

Contact your senators and tell them this bill, H.R. 1 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is simply not acceptable. Contact your family and friends, explain quickly how bad this bill is and tell them to contact their senators, too.

Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121

or use Resist.bot or 5Calls.

Call even if your senator(s) are Democrats or Independents, because they need to know how you feel, they need to know backsliding isn’t acceptable. Don’t trust they will do the right thing without hearing from you (I’m looking at Pennsylvanians especially given Sen. Fetterman’s increasing unreliability).