OKPOLICY.ORG
Phone and email contacts for Oklahoma’s U.S. Senators
The Oklahoma Policy Institute expresses deep concern over the U.S. House of Representatives’ narrow passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which immediately threatens the well-being of countless Oklahomans by slashing essential health care and food programs while creating tax shelters for the wealthiest Americans. Simply put, this bill is a transfer of wealth from America’s poor and middle class into the pockets of the nation’s richest 1 percent.
Key provisions include:
- Almost 15 million low-and-middle income U.S. Citizens and lawful residents becoming uninsured, jeopardizing health care access for children, seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families. This could include up to 1 in 6 Oklahomans who get their health care from SoonerCare, the state’s Medicaid program.
- Millions more will face higher premiums, copays, out-of-pocket costs, and pointlessly harsh ineffective work requirements and other red tape designed to force enrollees off Medicaid.
- Nearly 11 million people, including 4 million children and half a million seniors nationwide will be at risk of losing food assistance as harsh work requirements are applied to SNAP, the nation’s largest food assistance program. In Oklahoma, 1 in 6 households – most with children – have used SNAP in the past year to ensure that their families can have food on the table.
- Not expanding access to the child tax credit for 17 million children in low-income households – including nearly 1 in 4 Oklahoman children; it completely strips away access for 4.5 million children who are currently receiving the credit simply because they have an immigrant parent. A majority of these children are citizens.
- Making the wealthiest households richer by providing tax shelters in the form of private school voucher donations, and expanding estate tax exemptions.
And these are just the top line takeaways from what this massive bill would do. It will increase the federal deficit by nearly $4 trillion; it limits the authority of federal judges to hold U.S. government officials in contempt of court; it adds $46.5 billion for border security; it rolls back effective clean energy programs; it creates “Trump accounts” for children born between 2024 and 2028; and much, much more.
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Statement from OK Policy Executive Director Shiloh Kantz:
SNAP and SoonerCare (Oklahoma’s Medicaid program) are lifeline programs that serve our state’s most vulnerable residents, oftentimes the only thing keeping families fed and helping them see a doctor or fill a prescription. As a parent who has spent years navigating the healthcare system for a child with complex medical needs, I know how critical access to care is for families. That access is fragile for people with employer-provided health insurance coverage; it’s non-existent for folks without insurance.
SoonerCare payments to providers help keep rural hospitals and other health care providers solvent. Eroding access to SoonerCare means eroding access to health care services for every Oklahoman. Losing access to health care is a matter of life or death, and it is a dystopian reality that is not far in the future if this bill becomes law.
Oklahoma is one of the nation’s poorest states. As such, Oklahoma already faces serious challenges in ensuring residents can access health care and food. This bill would deepen those struggles, leaving our state to carry an even heavier burden with fewer resources. The reality is, states cannot afford these cost-shifts. One look at this year’s Oklahoma state budget makes this clear: If these federal supports go away, hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans will lose needed food and health care.
All five of Oklahoma’s Congressional representatives – Reps. Stephanie Bice, Josh Brecheen, Tom Cole, Kevin Hern, and Frank Lucas – voted to pass this harmful bill. Their decision to vote in favor of this bill ignores hardscrabble realities faced by the people they were elected to represent. Their votes are a slap in the face of every Oklahoman in need, as well as all who believe in a more prosperous Oklahoma.
As this bill moves to the U.S. Senate, we call on Sens. James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin to do what their House counterparts apparently could not: Put the interests of the people of Oklahoma over their own political interests.
Budgets are a moral document; a reflection of our collective values. The federal budget bill does not reflect a world in which people have their basic needs met, and that is not a world Oklahomans, and many Americans, voted for. Instead, this bill punishes families trying to survive while rewarding those who already have more than enough. This is a violation of our collective values. We call on our Senators to reject this dangerous legislation and instead push for a federal budget that invests in people, protects families, and ensures a future where every Oklahoman can thrive.
