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Molly Butler / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

Broadcast nightly news ignores Senate's proposed cuts to Medicaid

The Senate plan slashes Medicaid by an estimated $200 billion more than the House proposal

Written by Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Alex Guiden & Rob Savillo

Published

  • The nightly news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC have completely ignored the Senate GOP's proposed Medicaid cuts in the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

    The House’s version of the bill threatened to leave 10.9 million Americans uninsured because of proposed Medicaid cuts and changes to the Affordable Care Act. On June 16, Senate Republicans unveiled their proposal, which contained even deeper Medicaid cuts, a lower state and local tax deduction cap, and expanded work requirements for parents with children over 14 years old. The Senate version would potentially slash up to $1 trillion from Medicaid over a decade – $200 billion more than the House version would – and could "shutter" rural hospitals.

  • Despite the catastrophic scope of the proposed cuts, the flagship nightly programs of ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the Senate GOP's proposal and draconian Medicaid cuts. In fact, since June 16, when the Senate GOP revealed its proposal, the programs have failed to mention the bill at all. 

  • American Hospital Association President Rick Pollack said the bill’s “harmful proposals will impact access to all patients who are served by our nation’s hospitals and health systems.” He said the cuts will “strain emergency departments as they become the family doctor to millions of newly uninsured people” and “force hospitals to reconsider services or potentially close, particularly in rural areas."

    Even some Senate Republicans have pushed back on the extent of the cuts, warning about devastating impacts on rural health care access. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has "slammed" the bill, recently warning that it won’t pass the House. 

    “This needs a lot of work. It’s really concerning and I’m really surprised by it,” he said. “Rural hospitals are going to be in bad shape.”

  • A recent Quinnipiac poll found that a majority of Americans oppose Trump’s budget bill. Additionally, KFF, a nonprofit health policy research organization, found that “public support for the legislation drops 14 percentage points to 21% after hearing that the legislation would decrease funding for local hospitals.”

  • Methodology

  • Media Matters searched transcripts and reviewed raw video in the SnapStream and Kinetiq video databases for all original episodes of ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS’ Evening News, and NBC’s Nightly News from June 16, 2025, when Senate Republicans proposed even deeper cuts to Medicaid than the Republican-controlled House had proposed as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” through June 19, 2025.

    We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the Senate Republicans’ proposed version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the revised act. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the revised act with one another.

    We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the revised act without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the revised act scheduled to air later in the broadcast.