President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” is back on life support even before it gets to the House floor. Senator Hawley said Wednesday he cannot support legislation that will result in millions of Americans losing Medicaid benefits. 

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is charged with overseeing Medicaid, was still working through the amendment process as of Wednesday afternoon. Democrats are expected to drag the process out until Thursday, at which point it will be rolled into a larger piece of legislation that is expected to come to the floor next week. 

Mr. Hawley says he has seen enough of what House Republicans are offering, and he is not willing to go along with it. 

“I’m not gonna support this bill from the House in this form. I think that’s clear. It’s gotta change before it can pass the Senate,” Mr. Hawley told CNN during an interview on Wednesday. 

Mr. Hawley has called any cuts to Medicaid benefits his personal “line in the sand.” Senators Murkowski, Collins, and Moran have also said Medicaid should go untouched, given the impact any cuts could have on rural hospitals in their states. Ms. Collins even voted against the budget framework last month for fear that her colleagues were going to go after the healthcare program.

Senator Thune can afford to lose only three of his Republican colleagues if he wants to pass Mr. Trump’s megabill if it emerges from the House in its current form. 

“Listen, if you wanna do work requirements, I’m all for that,” Mr. Hawley says. “I bet every Republican — and I bet most Americans — would agree with that, but we’re not talking.”

“It oughta be a basic, foundation principle — it is wrong to cut healthcare for the working poor. That’s what we’re talking about here with Medicaid,” he added. 

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as many as 8.6 million Americans could lose access to Medicaid benefits if the current House version of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s bill is signed into law. Democrats have thrown around a number much higher — 13.7 million — though the additional 5.1 million that they are adding on relates to tax credits due to expire at the end of the year regardless of what happens with the legislation. 

“Over 20 percent of Missourians — including hundreds of thousands of children — are on Medicaid,” Mr. Hawley says. “They’re not on Medicaid because they wanna be, they’re on Medicaid because they cannot afford health insurance in the private market. These are working people, and their children, who need healthcare.”

“I hope that the House GOP and the Senate GOP will get the message here,” he added. 

The House version of the bill was hanging by a thread even before Mr. Hawley reiterated his “line in the sand” on Wednesday. Conservatives have complained that the legislation is expected to add trillions of dollars to the budget deficit, accelerating accumulation of more debt. Within the next 25 years, interest payments on the debt are set to become the largest item in the federal budget. 

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released its own estimate on Wednesday, with a study showing that the bill as currently written would add between $3.3 trillion and $5.2 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, depending on future extensions of provisions. 

New York suburban lawmakers are also twisting arms, demanding that Speaker Johnson do more to increase the existing cap on the State and Local Tax deduction. The speaker has offered to triple the current $10,000 SALT cap to $30,000 for households making less than $400,000, though that has been rejected by House members from blue states as being insufficient. They want higher caps.