Local lawmakers, medical officials push back on Wittman’s support of ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’

Several Henrico lawmakers and Richmond-area medical leaders have spoken out against U.S. Congressman Rob Wittman’s (R-VA-01) comments supporting the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

At a July 10 press conference, Wittman said the bill would make “no cuts in Medicare and Medicaid” and said that hospitals largely would benefit from the bill, saying that “rural hospitals will get quite an influx of dollars.” Wittman voted in favor of the bill, which passed through the U.S. House of Representatives on July 3.

In a July 17 email sent to his constituents titled, ‘Setting the Record Straight on H.R. 1,” Wittman also said that the bill ensures continued Medicaid services for groups such as children, seniors, and people with disabilities, and only cuts benefits for groups such as undocumented immigrants and able-bodied adults choosing not to work.

“The only people who are losing access to Medicaid benefits are illegal immigrants, deceased individuals, and able-bodied adults who choose not to partake in community engagement requirements,” Wittman wrote. “This legislation roots out waste, fraud, and abuse by removing people from the program who are ineligible.”

But state delegate Rodney Willett (D-58th District), who represents parts of Western Henrico that also fall under Wittman’s First District, said he fears the bill will have disastrous consequences for individuals who depend on Medicaid in his district, including those who are part of vulnerable groups such as children and people with disabilities.

Willett, who chairs Virginia's Joint Commission on Health Care, said the passage of the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ marks “the most significant attack on our health system that we’ve ever seen in the history of our country.”

“It’s smoke and mirrors. They’re saying, ‘No, no, no, we’re just going to put this requirement in and decrease the eligibility, add more burden.’ Well, every person, Republican or Democrat, knows that means that you’re going to reduce the number of people being covered by Medicaid,” he said. “There are plenty of people who are disabled, plenty of people taking care of not one, but multiple family members. . . and they're going to lose coverage.”

Willett, whose district includes about 11,000 people currently receiving Medicaid benefits, said he believes as many as a few thousand people could lose coverage because of stricter eligibility and documentation requirements enforced by the bill.

'Plenty of people are just going to drop off'

One new change requires individuals receiving Medicaid to provide documentation and proof of disability twice a year instead of just once a year, said Katrina VanHuss, who is the president of the Board of the Arc of Hanover, an advocacy group for people with disabilities.

VanHuss, who is the parent of a 34-year-old adult with Down syndrome, autism, and type 1 diabetes, said she already spends around 30 hours a month trying to meet the current Medicaid requirements, and worries how the new requirements will impact her family.

“The escalation of requirements to receive benefits will, in and of itself, have the desired outcome: reduce people on Medicaid because they can’t maneuver the byzantine system,” she said. “We struggle to comply with the current level of paperwork and methods required for compliance. We have lost Medicaid coverage once because we were misguided by a government employee who did not herself understand the system.”

Applying for and staying on Medicaid can be a difficult process, and many families with less resources are at risk of losing coverage, said Alex Krist, who works as a family physician at the Fairfax Family Practice Center and as a professor and researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“It's hard to apply for and to get Medicaid. In my practice, we have to have social workers to help people with this, because it's not an easy process,” he said. “So to make people update that process twice a year instead of once a year, plenty of people are just going to drop off.”

Krist, who is also the director of the Virginia Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network, an organization that includes 526 primary care practices across Virginia – including several in Henrico – said that many medical officials and clinicians are “terrified” about the outcomes of the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

“I haven’t met a practice or a clinician that isn’t concerned about what’s going to happen,” Krist said. “I think the medical community is very alarmed and worried.”

State senator Schuyler VanValkenburg (D-16th District), who represents the Western Henrico area, also pushed back on Wittman’s support of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” in a social media post, saying that Wittman’s comments were untruthful.

“We have a responsibility to be truthful with our constituents. [Wittman] voted for health care cuts and to close hospitals. That’s a fact,” VanValkenburg wrote. “The worst part of the Trump Era is the shamelessness with which politicians mislead voters.”

Cuts to Medicaid will heavily impact hospitals, especially rural hospitals that have more Medicaid patients, said Willett. But even hospitals in more affluent, suburban areas will be negatively affected, he said, since many of Virginia’s hospitals and clinics already struggle to stay afloat.

“Not just the rural hospitals, but all of the hospitals depend on that Medicaid formula to keep the lights on. It’s just part of the financial equation,” Willett said. “So we’re now talking about some of the most successful hospitals in the state, right here in my district, which is part of Wittman’s district, who are worried.”

At both his press conference and in emails to constituents, Wittman emphasized that Virginia hospitals will benefit from a provision in the bill, the Rural Health Transformation Program, that will distribute $50 billion to rural hospitals and healthcare systems over the next five years

However, Willett said he believes other, more rural states will likely see the bulk of that funding.

“If Virginia was going to get $50 billion, I wouldn't be yelling and screaming so much. We're not going to get $50 billion,” he said. “We probably won't get anything out of it, because there's a formula that's really biased towards – not that we don't have rural areas – but it's biased towards states like where your entire state is rural. So we'll be lucky to see five cents from that.”

Higher health care costs for everyone?

The Virginia Hospital and Health Care Association has estimated that Medicaid cuts could cost hospitals in the state roughly $2 billion a year, putting many hospitals at risk of closure. A loss of revenue that large will be difficult to make up, even with some federal funding for rural hospitals, said Krist.

“While the bill does have some subsidies to pay hospitals to adjust for those revenue losses, that's going to be hard to make up,” he said. “[Hospitals] are going to increase their charges to people with insurance, and that's going to increase health care costs for everyone.”

Medicaid cuts will also not just impact those receiving Medicaid benefits, said Willett, but will make accessing health care more difficult for even those on very good health insurance. Many people who lose Medicaid will likely only seek out medical care in emergency situations, he said, which will put strain on hospitals and increase wait times.

“Emergency departments today are crowded. There’s going to be lines out the door going forward,” Willett said. “We’re dramatically going to increase the overall health cost and burden on our system. And then folks who do have really good health coverage are going to have trouble getting access to facilities.”

Despite the bill becoming a “partisan issue,” Willett said that both his Democratic and Republican colleagues are concerned about the consequences of the bill, especially for more vulnerable communities and for Virginia’s more rural areas.

“The Democrats are super concerned, and I have my Republican colleagues, particularly those in rural parts of the state – they may not be able to go on the record like I can and express how concerned they are – but they are concerned because they know the constituents who were covered today are not going to be covered tomorrow,” he said. “The hospitals that are still hanging on and functioning today are not going to be operating tomorrow. And that’s just unacceptable.”

Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s government and education reporter. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.