The First Casualty of the Big Beautiful Bill?

[justaprogressive]

Yesterday, the Yale School of Public Health sent a letter to Senate Democratic leaders with a new analysis showing that the One Big Beautiful Bill’s changes to federal health care programs would kill more than 51,000 Americans annually. Nearly 15 million are liable to lose health coverage as a result of the bill, due to enrollment changes on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, Medicaid cuts that are the largest in U.S. history, and the end of support for the Medicare Savings Program, which grants access to subsidized prescriptions. Those cuts would cost about 29,500 people their lives, the Yale researchers estimate. Another 13,000 largely poor nursing home residents would die from the repeal of the Biden administration’s safe staffing rule, which would remove the minimum number of nurses on call in those facilities. And close to 9,000 would die from the government’s failing to extend enhanced premium support for the ACA that expires at the end of the year, making health coverage unaffordable for another five million Americans.

It’s not easy to wring a compelling message out of legislation that will cause 51,000 deaths. You can lie that the cuts aren’t cuts, but that only gets you so far. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), for example, was clearly flummoxed when confronted at a town hall in Butler, Iowa, last Friday with the fact that people will die because of the bill. So she went philosophical.

“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst said, in one of the most misguided attempts to quiet constituent fears I’ve seen in my political lifetime.

The reaction was immediate both in the room and on social media. And instead of walking back the comments, Ernst doubled down with a creepy “apology” video of her walking through a cemetery. “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,” she said, before snarking about the tooth fairy and making a pitch for embracing Jesus Christ as a personal savior who guarantees life in the hereafter.

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-04-first-casualty-of-the-big-beautiful-bill/

[marybourg]

1. Why did they send it only to Democrats?

[Moosepoop]

3. That statement in the article is inaccurate.

It was sent to Senators Ron Wyden and Bernie Sanders.

https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/proposed-federal-budget-could-lead-to-over-51000-preventable-deaths-researchers-warn-in-letter-to-senate-leaders/

Addressed to the Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Sen. Ron Wyden and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Sen. Bernie Sanders, the letter presents science-based projections of the human toll of eliminating key health protections. The findings point to catastrophic public health consequences from mass insurance losses and cuts to nursing home standards—provisions supported by the House bill.

(snip)

The science information presented in the letter was produced in response to a request for technical assistance from the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & and Pensions (HELP) regarding the potential mortality effects of several provisions in the House-passed reconciliation bill.

Wyden's and Sanders' committees requested the assistance from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. The resulting letter was then sent to the heads of those respective committees.

[marybourg]

5. Thank you for following up on that. I can see where the idea that it

was sent only to Dems, as the OP article stated, came from. The Yale newsletter itself says that the letter was addressed to the Finance Committee and the other committee’s Ranking Member (minority leader), although the request was made by the respective committees, presumably by the Chairs of each. Still a mystery to me.

[delisen]

2. Hog Castrator sacrifices career on MAGA Anti-Empathy Altar

Joni Ernst: The sooner you die the sooner you get to see Jesus, suckers My job as senator is to help you die sooner

[Fiendish Thingy]

4. If Dems mount an aggressive campaign with a strong candidate, they could pick up Ernest's seat in 2026. Nt