Fallout from the House Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill continues as a liberal advocacy group, Protect Our Care, is spending big on political ads against 11 GOP lawmakers in battleground districts.
The digital ads are a key component of the liberal group’s $10 million “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign that claims the targeted Republicans helped deliver “the biggest cut to Medicaid in history.”
The 11 Republican members of Congress targeted by the ads are Reps. David Schweikert of Arizona; David Valadao, Young Kim, and Ken Calvert of California; Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino, and Mike Lawler of New York; Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania; and Dan Newhouse of Washington state.
The House version of the reconciliation bill would extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 first-term tax cuts as well as provide additional funding for border security.
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, is not one of the targeted GOP lawmakers, perhaps because he has criticized the bill, though not for the same reason as Protect Our Care. Davidson posted on X: “Deficits do matter, and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we’re in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan.”
Outgoing Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk echoed the criticism. “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS News.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., defended the bill, telling Fox News that he had “sent my good friend Elon a long text message explaining it can be big and beautiful.” Republicans are unable to codify DOGE cuts that took place in discretionary spending as the reconciliation bill only deals with mandatory spending, such as major entitlement programs like Medicaid.
One of the ways House Republicans sought to save money was to make needed Medicaid reforms. The bill includes provisions that would create new work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients who are between the ages of 19 and 64 years who don’t have young children. It also would remove ineligible recipients, such as illegal immigrants and other noncitizens, from the Medicaid rolls.
But the bill also undercuts sources of federal revenue by fulfilling a Trump campaign promise of eliminating federal taxes on tips.
“More than 13 million Americans could lose health care—seniors, veterans, and children with disabilities,” the liberal group’s ad begins. The campaign claims that the GOP bill seeks “to give another huge tax break to billionaires and big corporations.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has cautioned Republicans about taking major swings at the popular federal entitlement program, noting that there are now Republican voters who are on Medicaid. He has said he favors work requirements, however.
“Benefit cuts is where a red line would be for me,” Hawley explained to The Washington Examiner.
“I mean, a work requirement, that’s something that probably unites Republicans,” the Missouri senator said. Ultimately, the ads’ effectiveness will likely depend in part on how much of the Medicaid cuts the Senate ultimately agrees to.
Protect Our Care was founded by Leslie Dach, who served in the administration of President Barack Obama as senior counselor to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Its president is longtime Democratic strategist Brad Woodhouse, a onetime communications director for the Democratic National Committee.
