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Fox News Ignores Trump Bill's Threat To End Health Care For Millions

Fox News has almost entirely ignored the projection that millions of people will lose health insurance if Republicans’ spending bill passes, mentioning the estimated effects of the health insurance cuts just once since a recent Congressional Budget Office report described the consequences. The report estimated that 10.9 million people would be left uninsured due to cuts to Medicaid and changes to the Affordable Care Act.

The majority of insurance losses — 7.8 million — can be attributed to “strict work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks.” The bill is currently being deliberated in the Senate.

Fox News’ overall coverage of the bill has praised these strict work requirements, pushed misinformation on the bill’s price tag, and suggested that only the undeserving will lose health insurance. Fox News host Laura Ingraham glossed over the possibility that millions of people might lose health insurance, suggesting that those who could be kicked off Medicaid are “stay-at-home sons.” Other Fox News personalities claimed Medicaid is not meant for “able-bodied men.” Host Sean Hannity falsely claimed that the CBO projected the legislation would reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion — while in reality the CBO estimated the bill would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion.

Since the CBO released its report on the projected uninsured on June 4, Fox News mentioned the potential insurance crisis only 1 time, devoting less than 30 seconds of coverage to the news. The Five’s Democratic co-host Jessica Tarlov offered the only mention of the CBO’s projection about the bill’s effect on millions of Americans’ health insurance.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for either of the terms “Congressional Budget Office” or “CBO” or any of the terms “Trump,” “Big Beautiful Bill,” “budget,” “reconciliation,” or “tax bill” within close proximity of any of the terms “health,” “insurance,” “Affordable Care Act,” “ACA,” “Obamacare,” or “Obama care” or any variation of the term “medica” from June 4, 2025, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its estimated budgetary effects of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, through noon ET June 5, 2025.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the CBO's estimate of the budgetary effects of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” with regard to health care enrollment was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the CBO's estimate of the bill’s effects on health care enrollment. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the CBO's estimate of the bill’s effects on health care enrollment with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a speaker mentioned the CBO's estimate of the bill’s effects on health care enrollment without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the CBO's estimate of the bill’s effects on health care enrollment scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

How Trump's 'Big Beautiful' Medicare Cuts May Harm Your Health Care

I’m no defender of the cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on the American people by the House Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed late Tuesday night. And it’s important to understand that Medicare as well as Medicaid will take a major hit, nearly $500 billion in cuts over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But the political impact will be far less than the cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, reproductive health, environmental and other program contained in the bill. That’s why I’m interrupting my travels this morning to offer this explainer because how defenders of Medicare and Medicaid talk about these Medicare cuts matters.

Under the bill, Medicare will be subjected to sequestration under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. Sequestration is an across-the-board cut in government programs that Congress can impose if a spending bill increases the deficit.

Not all programs are affected. Medicaid, Pell Grants, and Social Security benefits are exempt. Medicare, Head Start, housing assistance, public safety grants, and transportation, among many, are not. In theory, defense spending should also be cut, but it was increased under this bill.

CBO estimates this bill’s limited sequestration will impose a four percent across-the-board cut in Medicare funding. This would include payments to both providers (boo!!) and Medicare Advantage plans sold by insurers (yay!!). Since MA plans now cover over 51 percent of seniors and are paid somewhere between 8-20 percent more on average per beneficiary than traditional Medicare, insurers will get hit with most of the cuts.

Now, if this were targeted just at MA plans along with new requirements on how they spent the money (like raising the mandatory medical loss ratio to 90 percent from 85 percent), and the money saved was targeted to preserve Medicaid as it now is (the $500 billion would cover most of the proposed cuts to that program), I might be cheering this aspect of the bill.

But as it stands, this is how MA plans and providers in traditional Medicare will likely respond to sequestration should it make it into the final bill:

They will reduce access. MA insurers will impose more stringent prior authorization rules, increase claims denials, and impose reductions on the amounts they pay hospitals, doctors and other providers;
Physician practices will impose limits on patient access for non-essential and less remunerative services like wellness visits and preventive care. Private equity, insurer and some hospital-owned physician practices will speed up the treadmill that already has a typical office visit down to 13 minutes or less;
Fewer doctors in many areas of the country will accept new Medicare patients, resulting in longer wait times and more difficulty finding providers, especially specialists; and
Some of those extra benefits in MA plans will disappear or be made more difficult to use. Many plans may impose higher out-of-pocket costs; and
The cuts will be especially damaging in rural areas already suffering from hospital closures and physician shortages. Seniors and the disabled will have to travel farther for care.

CBO estimated Congress could save nearly $1 trillion over the next decade by simply cutting MA plan payments down to the same amount providers would have received had their beneficiaries remained in traditional Medicare. Instead, they crafted a sequestration that will make it harder and more expensive for seniors and the disabled to access care.

It is the ways that will affect beneficiaries is what the general public needs to hear about as the bill now moves to the Senate — not the top line dollar number for the cuts.

Reprinted with permission from Gooz News.

Republicans Launch Attack On 'Imaginary' Version Of Build Back Better Bill

Congressional Republicans are warning that President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan could cost a lot more — if it contained a lot of provisions that it does not contain.

Rather than explain their opposition to what's in the popular climate and caregiving infrastructure package, they are instead attacking a nonexistent proposal to spend trillions of dollars more.

On Friday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation released an estimate of what it called "a modified version of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, that would make various policies permanent rather than temporary

."The budget office took provisions of the actual bill, such as the child tax credit and Medicaid expansion, and assessed how much more it would cost if each were to be extended for all time. Doing so would make the ten-year $1.75 trillion plan into a $4.9 trillion bill and would require additional revenue or deficit spending, the budget office found.

GOP lawmakers seized on the CBO's theoretical projections to falsely assert that the numbers reflected the real price of the Build Back Better spending package.

"The true cost of the bill has more than doubled and the effect on the deficit is eightfold," argued Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who sits on the Senate Budget Committee.

"Today’s CBO score exposes the budget gimmicks Democrats have been using to hide the true cost of their tax & spending plan," wrote Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), the top Republican on the House Budget Committee. "CBO has confirmed their bill spends $4.9 trillion and adds $3 trillion to the debt – trillions more than Democrats claimed."

"The Congressional Budget Office found that the actual cost of Biden's spending bill is $3 TRILLION in new deficit spending," claimed Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).

"On the same day news broke that inflation has hit a nearly 40-year high, the CBO announces the true cost of the #BuildBackBroke agenda," said Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL). "$3 TRILLION. Americans can't afford Washington's spending problems."

In a press release, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) mocked Graham and his GOP colleagues for hyping the "CBO score of an imaginary bill."

"Congress and President Biden have made clear: any future extensions of the life-changing provisions of Build Back Better will be fully paid for, as they are today," Pelosi said in a statement.

Graham and Smith requested the analysis last month, demanding that it be completed before the House voted on the package, but Democrats passed the package nonetheless. The resolution now waits for a vote in the Senate.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

McCarthy Falsely Claims Biden Plan Will 'Add $5 Trillion' To Debt

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy falsely claimed on Monday that President Joe Biden's spending plan would add $5 trillion to the national debt. But he has previously acknowledged that it is funded by raising taxes on the rich and corporations.

On Fox News, the California Republican slammed the proposed Build Back Better plan — which would invest about $3.5 trillion in climate change, clean energy, health care, paid leave, child care, and free community college and pre-K — and the $550 billion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act."

McCarthy charged that the bill was funded "by putting a debt onto the next generation of Americans. That's how it's paid for."

When McCarthy was asked whether any Republican would join the Democratic majority in voting to address the debt ceiling and avert a national default, he answered, "There won't be [any]. They [Democrats] want to add another $5 trillion just this week.

"Our debt as we speak today is $28 trillion. We've got about another two to sell and they want to add another five," McCarthy added.

But McCarthy is way off on these numbers.

The cost of the bipartisan infrastructure plan — which passed the Senate 69-30 in August and would invest billions in transportation, water systems, broadband, and electrical grid infrastructure — is at least partially offset by savings and additional revenue. According to a partial analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, more than half of it is paid for.

And Biden has repeatedly promised that the $3.5 trillion plan would be paid for by increasing taxes on corporations and those making $400,000 or more annually. "It adds zero dollars to the national debt," he tweeted on Saturday.

In an April press release denouncing "Biden's radical tax and spend agenda," McCarthy claimed Biden "plans to 'Build Back Better' by growing the government, raising taxes on American families and investments, destroying jobs, and saddling future generations with a massive debt — an agenda that will inevitably crush economic opportunity."

In May, McCarthy accused Biden of "proposing the largest tax increase in American history, including making our corporate tax rate the highest in the world."

The United States added $7.8 trillion to the national debt during former President Donald Trump's time in office — much of it with support from Republicans in Congress. In 2019, McCarthy and a bipartisan House majority opted to suspend the debt limit for the remainder of Trump's term.

The GOP's 2017 tax cut plan, which largely benefited the wealthiest Americans, increased the same budget shortfalls by severely cutting tax revenue. In 2018, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the Republican tax cuts would add roughly $1.9 trillion to the federal deficit between 2018 and 2028.

"In 2017, Republicans lowered taxes & let you keep more of your own money," McCarthy tweeted earlier this month. "Now, Democrats want to take America backward. They are going to vote to raise your taxes so they can spend more on socialist pet projects."

The proposed debt limit increase is not about paying for the new plans; it is needed to allow the government to pay for the commitments made already by this and previous Congresses and for the interest on the debt already accrued.

According to a recent report from Moody's Analytics, failure to address the debt ceiling could cost the nation's economy up to 6 million jobs, reduce household wealth by nearly $15 trillion, and increase the unemployment rate from five percent to nine percent.

A McCarthy spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Fox News Ignores Trump Bill's Threat To End Health Care For Millions

Methodology

How Trump's 'Big Beautiful' Medicare Cuts May Harm Your Health Care

Republicans Launch Attack On 'Imaginary' Version Of Build Back Better Bill

McCarthy Falsely Claims Biden Plan Will 'Add $5 Trillion' To Debt

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