The First Casualty of the Big Beautiful Bill?

[Passages]

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst told a constituent, who feared health care cuts would lead to mass death, that ‘We all are going to die.’ That’s prompted a formidable challenge to her re-election.

by David Dayen June 4, 2025

The Relief Pitcher and Joni Hearse 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.

SNIP
Scholten, 45, who nearly beat anti-immigrant nationalist Steve King in a northwest Iowa congressional seat Donald Trump won by 27 points in 2018, had been mentioned on short lists of potential challengers to Ernst. But his timeline was set to later in the year, in part due to his summer gig as a pitcher on the minor league Sioux City Explorers. Then Ernst implanted her foot directly in her mouth. “She was not wrong in that we all are going to die, but we don’t have to die so billionaires can have a bigger tax cut,” Scholten said.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-04-first-casualty-of-the-big-beautiful-bill/

Game on.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Until the Iowan

maga Pub voters prove it - we can't rely on them caring about their own access to health care.

[Passages]

2. I think he can win.

How he handles it, of course, but she stepped in it big time.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. We'll see

In an ideal world the past 5 months should tell people everything they need to know -

But then I see an article about an Iowa Farmer who is being hurt by the tariffs - but he still supports everything else Trump is doing.

His culture and perception of 'who is an American' and 'who is not an American' drives his life.

[Passages]

6. American voters have been brainwashed on many levels regrading how government functions

since Reagan. We have a great deal to fight against, and this one is particularly significant.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. I know

They had Rick Scotts 11 Point Plan, Project 25 and Agenda 47 -


And they still punched themselves in their throats.

[Passages]

9. Yes, which is what makes it difficult to be hopeful.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. If 51,000 die a year, it means hundreds of thousands will suffer adverse health each year

Losing a foot to diabetes doesn't kill you, but only RepubliCONs don't care, unless it is someone in their extended family.

Foregoing stents and losing the ability to walk more than a block.

Suffering with pain from a failed knee.

Incomplete therapy from a brain injury.

On and on. Making America Groan with pain Again.

[gab13by13]

5. Absolutely

The US doesn't rank very well in life expectancy as it is.

This Big Ugly death Bill is going to lower the life expectancy in the US even more.

I guess if Magats stay in power, they can fudge the numbers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. It's not only deaths, but quality of life for the living. Death is abstract. Pain is knowable. . . . . nt

[FakeNoose]

10. We're all going to die - so why are the insurance companies making so much money?

[Passages]

11. Exactly.