Whitehouse Knocks Down Vice President’s Lies About Republican-caused Health Care Crisis

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) today slammed Vice President JD Vance's social posts, which egregiously misrepresent Democrats' push to end the Republican government shutdown and to fix the chaos and destruction Republicans have unleashed on the American health care system:

"The lawless Trump administration is using every trick in their propaganda playbook to distract from the fact that health insurance premiums for Rhode Island families are about to more than double, unless there is bipartisan action from Congress. The Vice President knows very well that people who are not in this country legally have NEVER been eligible for federally funded Medicaid, Medicare, or Affordable Care Act tax credits.

"This is a Trump shutdown manufactured to continue Republicans' strange fetish for taking away Americans' health care. While Republicans control the presidency and both chambers of Congress, Democrats will use every lever of power we have to end the Republican health care crisis and end their shutdown."

On Tuesday night, before the government shut down, Whitehouse explained that Republicans were repeating baseless lies about Democrats shutting down the government to give health care to undocumented immigrants. Vance responded to the Senator on X with a bizarre post erroneously showing a state-funded health care policy in New York. After Whitehouse pointed out the Vice President's mischaracterization of a state-funded policy, not federal at all, Vance issued another statement this morning trying to clean up his misleading post by saying that "money is fungible."

Undocumented immigrants are prohibited from buying Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace coverage and receiving ACA tax credits. Undocumented immigrants also cannot receive federally funded Medicaid and Medicare coverage. Nothing in the Republican Beautiful-for-Billionaires Law changes these policies, meaning repeal of the law's more than $1 trillion in health care cuts makes no changes to this prohibition for undocumented immigrants.

In July, President Trump and Congressional Republicans jammed through their Big, Beautiful-for-Billionaires bill, which cuts almost a trillion dollars from Medicaid, triggers a half-trillion in Medicare cuts, and raises health insurance costs, all to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Without bipartisan action to extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits, health insurance premiums are set to more than double on average next year.

The new law also included a hidden cut to Medicare from adding $4.1 trillion to the national debt, automatically triggering the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act, which will impose $536 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare over the next decade.

Whitehouse's office remains open to help Rhode Islanders navigate the Republican government shutdown.