Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues, and particularly Senator Baldwin, in expressing my strong opposition to the Republican budget resolution and deep concern over the future of the Medicaid program.

This resolution has one main priority: gutting programs like Medicaid and food stamps to pay for a $4.5 trillion--that is right--trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.

Donald Trump calls this ``one big, beautiful bill,'' but it is a bill that average Americans and the most vulnerable will be paying for years to come.

Among the most egregious and cynical cuts are the proposed cuts to Medicaid. These are expected to be at least $880 billion under the budget that President Trump favors. Cuts of this magnitude would be devastating to the 80 million Americans who rely on Medicaid and the related Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP. We are talking about essential healthcare coverage for children, seniors in nursing homes, people with disabilities, among other vulnerable populations.

In my home State of Rhode Island, Medicaid provides crucial healthcare and peace of mind for over 300,000 of my constituents, about one-third of the State. If you think Medicaid is some program far removed from your life, I can tell you, you are wrong.

So many of our friends, families, and neighbors are served by the Medicaid program. It is not a program for poor people alone. It is a program that is accessed by many different people, and it will touch every family one way or the other in Rhode Island if it is defunded as proposed in this resolution.

Nationally, about half of all children will get healthcare through Medicaid--half of all children. Roughly 40 percent of all births are paid for by the Medicaid program. Medicaid also provides essential coverage for pregnant women. If we are concerned about supporting families and making sure kids get a healthy start in life, Medicaid is crucial to this effort. So who will suffer? Children. Who will benefit from this resolution? The wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Medicaid is also critical for seniors getting nursing home care. They make up a small percentage of the Medicaid population but account for roughly half of Medicaid spending. In Rhode Island, roughly 22 percent of the Medicaid population are seniors and people with disabilities, but that accounts for half of Rhode Island's Medicaid spending. And many, many, many of these seniors come from working families.

They have spent their whole life trying to improve themselves, give their children a better chance in life, support their community, serve their Nation--all of these things. And now at a time of great medical need, we have to be there for them. And this proposal shuts the door effectively on it.

To put a finer point on it, with respect to nursing home patients, 60 percent of these residents get their healthcare through Medicaid, and this proposal will not only harm the recipients, it will effectively put most nursing homes out of business. So where will these people go, these seniors go?

And it will also put so much pressure on our other healthcare systems--like emergency rooms and hospitals--that they, too, will start to falter and fail. The second- and third-order consequences of these cuts are just as bad as the initial cuts to Medicaid.

And if you cut this access to nursing homes, it will reverberate throughout our entire healthcare system. And if there is no Medicaid, then the burden falls on the families. So families in America will be facing another great obstacle.

They are looking at inflation today, which is going up, not coming down. They are looking at an affordable housing crisis, which is raising their rents. And now they will be looking at the need to care for their elderly parents, elderly relatives, and that will be crushing to many families.

Now, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have talked about adding work requirements to the Medicaid Program in particular. They claim that enabling the most vulnerable people to get access to healthcare discourages them from working. But after hearing about those who are served by the Medicaid Program, I am not sure whom it is they are looking to go back to work. The millions of children who are covered by Medicaid, should they be forced to work? We can repeal the child labor laws. Or the seniors in nursing homes? Well, put them out. They are seniors that worked all their lives and put them back to work.

And even when you drill down to the working population, the nondisabled Medicaid population, 92 percent are working full or part time or are unable to work due to caregiving responsibilities, illness, or school attendance--92 percent. These people work hard, and they deserve access to healthcare.

The so-called able-bodied adults who are not working because they get free healthcare through Medicaid is more a myth than anything else. In fact, access to healthcare keeps people healthy and able to work. Taking away healthcare keeps people sick and unable to work. That is something that I hope we all realize.

Now, I would also like to talk for a minute about the unique structure of the Medicaid Program. It is a State-Federal partnership. By and large, States design their programs so they can best serve the needs of their State. This is the ultimate example of giving power back to States to determine what is best for their residents. States put up money and then the Federal Government puts in their share to help the States provide such healthcare.

Medicaid is also flexible and able to contract and expand as needed. For example, during the economic downturns and recessions, if more people are unemployed and lose health coverage with their job, Medicaid is able to step in and provide coverage. That is especially important in making sure that kids don't lose coverage when a parent is laid off.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many people lost work through no fault of their own, Medicaid was a critical lifeline in providing care. Can you imagine how terrifying it would have been to have suddenly lost your job and your health insurance in the middle of a pandemic? It was a new disease that we knew so little about, sending otherwise healthy people to the hospital unable to breathe. The last thing you want to be thinking about in that circumstance is whether or not you can afford to go to the hospital because you just lost your health insurance. Medicaid stepped forward and eased that fear.

Now, certainly, we always should be open to have discussions about how we can make improvements to Federal programs to better serve our constituents and be more cost-effective, but what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are engaging in this week is not a substantive debate about the Medicaid Program. There has been no cost-benefit analysis done on Medicaid because I would argue that the benefits far outweigh the costs: healthy children that can learn, mature, and go on to be effective members of our economy and our society, seniors who have worked their whole lives and deserve a respectful and effective care when they are ill.

In fact, we haven't really been talking about Medicaid at all. Again, without any analysis, this is just to find money for tax cuts. So what they have been looking at is not cost and benefits, just costs. Give me money, and I will give it away and not to those who are in the working class but those who are very, very wealthy.

Last night, President Trump said:

       “Medicare, Medicaid--none of that stuff is going to be touched.”

I will say it again. Last night, President Trump promised the American people:

       “Medicare, Medicaid--none of that stuff is going to be touched.”

Well, of course, like he frequently does, he has changed his position in less than 24 hours. He is endorsing a House bill that would severely cut Medicaid.

I would hope that my Republican colleagues will join myself and others in voting for our amendments to protect these vital programs.

You will have that choice, and I hope you do it for the people you represent.