– BBB. On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate
passed President Trump’s domestic spending bill, branded the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The legislation has been the subject of in-fighting among Republicans and contempt among Democrats, and ended up passing by a razor-thin margin of 51-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
The legislation would affect every aspect of American society—for people and businesses. But the bill’s demolition of the American social safety net means that women will be especially impacted.
A key tenet of the bill’s current iteration is a whopping $1.1 trillion in cuts over the next decade to Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Currently, 24 million women are enrolled in Medicaid; 56% of those women are of reproductive age, according to
research from the National Partnership for Women and Families. Women of color make up over half of this group as well.
“It’s really easy to think about access to healthcare as a social issue, but the truth is, we’re also talking about a really critical economic issue: Being healthy and being able to participate in the workforce [is] critical to keep the American capitalist system going,” says Cynthia Plotch, cofounder of Winx Health, a women’s reproductive health brand.
The bill would cut off Medicaid funding for abortion providers,
such as Planned Parenthood. While the Hyde Amendment prevents federal funding from being used to cover abortion, the bill would bar Medicaid from covering the cost of any non-abortion services that Planned Parenthood provides, such as STI testing and cancer screening.
“The more and more women are denied access to care, whether that be abortion [or] other care, the more likely they are to face debt, financial instability, [and] remove themselves from the workforce because of unwanted children,” Plotch says.
The most sizable cuts to Medicaid would come from a new work requirement, in which enrollees would have to consistently file paperwork to prove they work for at least 80 hours a month. “It’s really based on very outdated, racist and sexist stereotypes about those who receive benefits,” Sharmili Majmudar, executive vice president of policy, programs, and research at Women Employed, a Chicago-based nonprofit, says. Four out of five nonworking, able-bodied adults on Medicaid are women, with an average age of 41, according to research from the Milbank Memorial Fund, a foundation focused on population health and equity.
Currently, the bill is being pushed through the House, where it faces resistance from several GOP members. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have been meeting with key holdout votes in an effort to coalesce before a July 4 deadline. Women in the Senate and the House have been critical voices in both outright opposition to the legislation—and as swing votes using their political power to influence the bill’s ultimate outcome. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who cast a critical yes vote on the bill,
acknowledged that “in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged” by the legislation; her holdout helped
Alaska come out with more funding. On Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.)
ridiculed the bill on the House floor, arguing that if her Republican colleagues believe the bill is beautiful, they’re suffering from “very blurred vision.”
MPW Daily is taking a break tomorrow for the July Fourth holiday and will return to your inbox Monday, July 7.Sara Braunsara.braun@fortune.comThe Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’
s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Sara Braun. Subscribe here.
