[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4606-S4607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       One Big Beautiful Bill Act

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly about two 
subjects. They are different. They are both important, but they are 
different.
  Let me start with the reconciliation bill, which President Trump and 
others called the One Big Beautiful Bill. I continue to go through the 
bill, and every time I do, I am impressed.
  This is a breathtaking bill in the sense that it covers so many 
subjects. I think each of us could spend hours talking about this bill. 
I will just hit the highlights. This is one of the most far-reaching 
pieces of legislation that this body will ever pass.
  We extended the 2017 tax cuts--no small feat in itself. Had we not 
done that, the American people would have suffered under a $4.3 
trillion tax increase. So we stopped that tax increase.
  Some of my friends and colleagues talk about, well, all you did was 
stop the tax increase on billionaires.
  That is nonsense. That is nonsense on a stick. Unless your soup of 
the day is gin, you know that that is a lie.
  Half of that tax increase would have hit working men and working 
women and working families in this country. The other half would have 
hit our small businesses, and, yes, some of our large businesses. We 
stopped that.
  We made some of those tax cuts permanent. We cut taxes on tips. In 
this bill, we cut taxes on overtime. We cut taxes on Social Security. 
We cut taxes on car loans. We expanded a tax credit for childcare to 
help moms and dads pay for the childcare so they can work. We increased 
the child tax credit. We increased the standard deduction, and that is 
going to take effect immediately.
  We funded school choice. For years and years and years, I have 
tried--we all have tried, many of us have tried--to provide the 
American people--moms and dads--with school choice. This bill did it. I 
went to a public school. I am proud of that. But competition makes all 
of us better. I can go to my overpriced Capitol Hill apartment or 
Capitol Hill grocery store and choose from

[[Page S4607]]

six or seven types of mayonnaise. Why shouldn't we give parents--moms 
and dads--choices for their kids' education? We are doing that with the 
school choice portion of this bill.
  We increase money for the border, and we increase money for defense.
  We also address the problem in Medicaid. And I have been very 
disappointed because some commentators have said that we are going to 
throw off from the Medicaid rolls, I have read, anywhere from 10 to 12 
million people. The implication in some of these articles and some of 
these comments is that we are just going to look at the Medicaid rolls 
and go through and say: You are gone. We can't afford you.
  That is not what this bill does. The first thing you have to realize 
is that, actually, Medicaid is not going to be cut at all under this 
bill. Under our bill that we just passed, our spending on Medicaid over 
the next 10 years is going to go up 20 percent, so nobody is cutting 
Medicaid.
  There are some people, as a result of the new provisions that we have 
put into law, who will no longer be eligible for Medicaid and will no 
longer get Medicaid. But they weren't entitled to get it in the first 
place. So when you say: Well, you are throwing people off of Medicaid--
they weren't entitled to it in the first place. You are not entitled to 
Medicaid if you are making $200,000 a year and you didn't tell the 
truth when you signed up for Medicaid in your State and your State 
didn't verify your status.
  But let me give you one example. CMS just put out a report. Our bill 
is going to change the law so that 2.8 million Americans--the CBO says, 
like, we are throwing 10 or 12 million Americans off of Medicaid. I 
will just give you this one example: 2.8 million of those Americans who 
will lose Medicaid are doubledippers. They signed up twice. We have 1.2 
million people on the Medicaid rolls who are signed up in two States, 
and the American taxpayer is paying twice.
  As you know, Mr. President, well--you were a great Governor; you were 
a Governor and a damn good one--most States use managed care, and they 
pay per Medicaid person. So if a State is paying, let's say--I will 
pick a number--$8,000 per Medicaid patient per year to the healthcare 
organization to provide their care, and that person is signed up in two 
States, they are doubledipping, and it is costing the American taxpayer 
two $8,000 payments a year. That is cheating. So from one perspective, 
you are throwing these people off of Medicaid--they weren't entitled to 
doubledip in the first place.
  CMS also came out with a report. By ``CMS,'' I mean the Centers for 
Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is the Federal Agency that 
administers Medicare and Medicaid. CMS has also found that there are 
1.6 million people who are on Medicaid today who are receiving both 
Medicaid and ObamaCare.
  Well, what is ObamaCare? I will refresh everyone's memory.
  Medicaid is supposed to be for the poor and disabled, and Medicare is 
for the elderly, and a lot of other Americans have health insurance 
through their job. But there are a certain number of Americans who 
don't have health insurance because they are not old enough for 
Medicare, they are not poor enough for Medicaid, and maybe their 
employer doesn't offer health insurance. So they can go to an 
exchange--we call them the ObamaCare exchange--and buy health 
insurance.
  Now, President Obama and some of my colleagues--I wasn't here then, 
but when we passed the ObamaCare, the ObamaCare exchanges, the 
Affordable Care Act, we were told that health insurance would be 
cheaper, and we were told it would be more accessible. It has been 
neither. We were also told if you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor. That wasn't true either.
  But the point is that we have a number of Americans who, if they 
don't qualify for Medicare, they don't qualify for Medicaid, they don't 
get insurance through their employer, they go to the ObamaCare 
exchanges. CMS found we have got 1.6 million people who are getting 
both health insurance through the ObamaCare exchanges--which we 
subsidize, taxpayers do--and through Medicaid. That is called 
doubledipping. It is illegal.
  CBO can put out all the reports that they want to saying: Oh, you are 
throwing all these people off Medicaid. And technically, they are 
right, but they are not eligible to be on Medicaid. I just gave you an 
example, 2.8 million people who are doubledipping. It is illegal to 
doubledip. It is immoral to doubledip. It is unfair to taxpayers to 
doubledip. All our bill does is say you can't doubledip. Cheating is 
wrong.
  Is that throwing people off of Medicaid? Technically, yes. But, once 
again, as the other provisions in this bill also do, we are taking 
people off Medicaid who weren't eligible for it in the first place.
  As a result of these 2.8 million people, I think CMS--I am looking 
for their figure. I think it cost the American taxpayer, because of 
these 2.8 million folks who are doubledipping, $14 billion a year--$14 
billion a year over a 10-year window, which is the horizon that we use. 
That is $140 billion that we are going to save, and that savings is 
going to go back into Medicaid to make it even stronger.
  That is just one example of how much of--not much, but--well, yes, 
much of the reporting on our bill is misleading.