WASHINGTON — Prominent members of both parties, both in and beyond Washington, are sounding the alarm about House Republicans’ plan to cut Medicaid health care for millions of low-income Americans.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., slammed “corporatist Republicans” and the “party’s Wall Street wing” for centering their efforts towards passing President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill on “slashing health insurance for the working poor.”

“That argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal,” Hawley wrote in a New York Times op-ed this week. “If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It’s that simple. And that pattern will be replicated in states across the country.”

On CNN on Wednesday, Hawley said he would not support the House Republican bill, adding uncertainty to its already rocky path to passage by Republicans' 53-seat Senate majority. 

Hawley noted that over 70 million Americans, roughly 20% of the country, rely on Medicaid, including more than one million Missourans.

Democratic leaders have similarly argued the Republican cuts will end access to health care for millions of Americans, frequently claiming the number would be 13.7 million people. That statistic is in dispute, but even low-end estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the Republican legislation would “would reduce the number of people with health insurance by at least 8.6 million in 2034.”

“When you throw 13 million people off of health insurance, when you raise copayments for poor people, it is a death sentence,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent, said on MSNBC on Wednesday night. “Thousands and thousands of low-income and working people will die because they simply will not be able to get into a doctor’s office when they need it.”

Despite Trump insisting his agenda won’t cut Medicaid, House Republicans advanced legislation through a key committee on Wednesday that would do just that, as well as cut food stamps and clean energy subsidies to help pay for a $3.8 trillion tax cut, increased military spending and funding for the president’s immigration enforcement and deportation efforts. 

“We said repeatedly, we are protecting Medicaid for the people who need and deserve it. This program is an essential lifeline for our most vulnerable Americans: pregnant women, single mothers, low-income seniors, the disabled, that's who Medicaid is intended to be for, and that's who we're protecting,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at a press conference on Wednesday. “We're eliminating fraud, waste and abuse to improve Medicaid. These are reforms to restore and preserve the system so that it doesn't collapse on itself.”

But even if Johnson’s plan can survive the House — where some more populist and moderate Republicans are hesitant to commit to the cuts and fiscal hawks in the Freedom Caucus are frustrated the cost-cutting doesn’t go far enough — the Senate looms as a serious obstacle to getting the bill to Trump’s desk. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, both Republicans in vulnerable seats in 2026, told The Hill this week they have reservations, even if they’re broadly open to Medicaid reforms and some cutbacks. 

“It looks like from a very quick review that the way provider taxes are treated would be very harmful to Maine’s hospitals,” Collins said. Hawley and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski also expressed deep concern about the impacts of the legislation on rural hospitals in their states, a struggling sector where closures outpace openings and where Medicaid covers roughly half of all births, according to the independent health care policy nonprofit KFF. 

All 23 Democratic governors signed onto a statement denouncing the Republican plan this week. Republican governors who have embraced Medicaid expansion in their states have been more hesitant to speak out, but Idaho Gov. Brad Little pleaded with his party in Washington this week to spare his state from Medicaid and food stamp cuts. 

“We've got to cut spending somewhere, somehow, in order to get our balanced budget back," former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who Trump once floated as a possible running mate, told a Phoenix TV news outlet last month. “But it's not going to happen with Medicaid. You can't kill people to balance your budget. You just can't do that.”