All eyes will be on the U.S. Senate this week as senators debate what to do after the House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act last month.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are urging senators to vote no. They rallied Sunday in Brooklyn to highlight what they say could happen if the bill becomes law and say those provisions would be detrimental to the state.
"Nursing homes will close, hospitals will shut down and Community Health Centers will lose funding,” Jeffries said in a statement. "House Republicans from New York were nothing more than a rubber stamp for Trump’s reckless and extreme agenda, voting to strip healthcare from their constituents. We must keep the pressure on and continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that the One Big Ugly Bill is buried deep in the ground, never to rise again.”
Hochul and Jeffries say the act would hurt federal funding to Medicaid and the Essential Plan, causing about 1.5 million New Yorkers to lose their health insurance. They also say it would result in more than $3 billion in losses for hospitals in the state.
"We have 1.5 million New Yorkers who will be off of Medicaid because of this program," Hochul said. "What is supposed to happen to them? I'll tell you what's going to happen. They're not going to get preventative care. They're going to end up in our emergency rooms, overcrowding the hospitals, and guess what? Everybody who's not on Medicaid, they're going to make it too crowded for you and your families when you need care."
The package includes roughly $700 billion in reduced spending on Medicaid. The bill would also create new community engagement requirements of at least 80 hours per month. That requirement would not go into effect until January 2029.
"[House Republicans are] taking a wrecking ball against vulnerable children and families and senior citizens and people who are too sick to work," Hochul said. "If we can't take care of them, what does that say about us as a nation?"
The president and House Republicans say the cuts are targeting waste, fraud and abuse.
The Senate is set to take up the bill this week and could make changes to it, which would mean it would have to go back to the House for approval.