Representative Thomas Massie has put a huge target on his own back by standing up and opposing the administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
The President has promised to get Massie defeated in his next primary, with his loyalists going as far as establishing a new Political Action Committee (PAC) – Kentucky MAGA – specifically dedicated to gatekeeping Massie’s challengers and assuring no one splits the votes during the primary.
“If you want to be part of an effort to defeat Massie you will go through us. And the Trump political operation will run the campaign,” former Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita, a Virginia based political consultant, said of the PAC he co-founded with New York based pollster Tony Fabrizio to unseat Massie.
If you noticed the two guys working so hard to unseat Massie aren’t from around here, you aren’t alone.
But while the pair working to unseat him aren’t from here, Massie is. So, he understands what is at stake for his constituents, better than a couple of rich guys from New York and just south of the D.C. beltway ever could.
And what’s at stake is money – lots of it. Massie, whether you agree or disagree with him, is a fiscal conservative. His opposition to the president’s budget bill is predicated mostly on the nearly $4 trillion (that’s trillion, with a “t”) it is projected to add to the national debt over the next ten years.
Adding that kind of debt to our already sizeable deficit isn’t what Massie has campaigned on, or ever supported. So, it’s no surprise that he’d oppose this budget. And he isn’t alone. Republican Senator Rand Paul has indicated he will vote no for the same reasons. Meanwhile Senator Mitch McConnell, who is stepping down at the end of his term and hasn’t shied from criticism of the administration in the past, appears to support the budget, reportedly telling colleagues that voters concerned about cuts to Medicaid in the bill would, “get over it.”
But while McConnell may believe voters will “get over it” – and frankly has nothing to lose if they don’t – the situation for the thousands of Kentuckians who depend on Medicaid or Medicaid related programs could be more serious than a primary vote.
It’s a central concern of voters across the country, particularly in rural areas. That’s because even if you aren’t a Medicaid recipient, a number of other state-based insurance programs are funded, at least in part, through the Medicaid program. In Kentucky this includes the KCHIP program for children.
It will also disproportionately hurt rural hospitals who serve these populations. According to some reports, up to 35 rural Kentucky hospitals are at-risk of closure if the Medicaid cuts in the budget bill are passed. These include hospitals offering specialty services that are utilized by people across the region and the state.
And their closure won’t just impact the folks on Medicaid who rely on them. Working people, who rely on the hospitals in their communities for emergency and continuing care, could be hurt.
If you live in Olive Hill and visit a specialist at St. Claire in Morehead or have taken your kids there for emergency stitches or to set a broken bone – they’re one of the hospitals listed at risk. So is Three Rivers Medical Center in Louisa, as well as hospitals in Fleming County, Mount Sterling, and elsewhere.
The closure of those hospitals won’t just mean loss of care for those who rely on Medicaid, and a longer trip to find a doctor for those with private insurance. It will have a ripple effect through the entire community. These hospitals are often among the largest employers in the communities they call home. When they close, the people who work there will lose their jobs. Some of them might not be able to pay their rent, or will have to move. Restaurants and other businesses that support the workers will go out of business. That will mean fewer payroll taxes collected by local governments, and an increased tax burden on the folks who remain, along with declining services as communities struggle to close their own funding gap.
It may not be something Mitch thinks his colleagues need to worry about. But it’s something Thomas Massie and Rand Paul are thinking about. Not because they’re pro-socialized healthcare or proponents of the welfare state. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But because they’re realists. They’re fiscal conservatives. And no matter how you cut it – from the trillions added to the federal deficit, to the devastation hospital closures would have on local economies – the current budget bill doesn’t make economic sense.
So, are Massie and Paul right to oppose it? Yes. We think so.
