The highly controversial, Republican-backed reconciliation bill has been signed into law by President Donald Trump. It’s likely to ravage healthcare and food benefits on a national level, among other things.
The $3.4 trillion H.R.1 Bill (or One Big Beautiful Bill Act) was introduced in May 2025 by Texas Republican Congressmember Jodey C. Arrington. It’s also referred to as a reconciliation bill, which is considered by Congress to be a method of expediting legislative procedures to prevent a filibuster and restrict amendments in the Senate.
Despite vehement opposition from House Democrats and initially a handful of Republicans, it was signed into law on July 4 of this year.
Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8), the House Democratic Minority Leader, said the HR1 Bill represents the largest cut to Medicaid in American history; cuts to the clean energy tax credits and nutritional assistance; and hurts veterans, seniors, and children. He lamented that all they needed were two additional Republicans to join in and they could have stopped the bill from passing.
The actual language in the HR1 Bill makes changes to Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the armed forces in the Department of Defense (DOD); higher education; Department of Energy (DOE) clean energy and environment programs; artificial intelligence (AI) regulations; Medicaid; the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); immigration matters; the Department of Justice (DOJ); the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS); aviation and motor administrations; and taxes.
The bill expands work requirements for SNAP recipients “who are able-bodied adults without dependents” now applies to adults who are not over 65 years old; limits criteria for eligibility for SNAP based on household internet costs, utility costs, and unemployment in the area; and expressly reserves it for U.S. citizens. The bill also affects marketing loans, disaster assistance, the sugar program, federal crop insurance, livestock and poultry insurance programs, and dairy coverage under the USDA umbrella.
“The fact that this bill rips food out of the mouths of children and then they turned around and bent the knee to Donald Trump, because that’s what they do. They don’t work for the American people at this particular point in time,” said Jeffries to MSNBC on July 8. “They work for Donald Trump. They act like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration. It’s an embarrassment. And now that embarrassment will actually result in the American people being hurt in devastating ways.”
The bill increases fees for applications for asylum, employment authorizations for asylees, parolees, individuals applying or granted temporary protected status (TPS), individuals paroled into the U.S., and sponsoring the placement of an unaccompanied child. It also establishes various fees for judicial filings in immigration court or filing an appeal of a decision from an immigration judge or a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer.
The bill terminates all current student loan repayment plans for loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2026; eliminates economic hardship and unemployment deferments, limits eligibility for federal student aid, the amount of aid students may receive, eliminates access to certain subsidized and direct loans, establishes new annual and aggregate loan limits for borrowers, and “revises the citizenship categories that qualify a student for federal student aid.” With an exemption for students from certain family farms and small family businesses filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
The bill gets rid of grants and rebates for zero-emission vehicles, incentives to reduce air pollution, funds to help low-income and disadvantaged communities reduce greenhouse gas emissions, air quality monitoring for corporate climate action commitments, and funding for environmental and climate justice block grants.
“As someone who has seen firsthand the life-saving power of community-based healthcare, food access, and housing support, I am deeply concerned about the projected loss of coverage for millions of Americans and the long-term consequences of stripping resources from those in need,” said Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn in a statement.
In the coming years, the bill mandates that states regularly get the addresses of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees no later than 2027; regularly check whether Medicaid enrollees are deceased beginning in 2028; determine the eligibility of individuals under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obama Care) every six months beginning on December 31, 2026; change pricing models for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs); prohibit gender transition procedures under Medicaid or CHIP; prohibit federal Medicaid payment to nonprofit healthcare providers that serve predominantly low-income individuals for 10 years; and limit funding to centers that offer abortions or reproductive health services. It also prevents states from qualifying for federal matching payments and limits state-directed payments to hospitals.
The bill also requires Medicaid enrollees to engage in community service, participate in a work program for at least 80 hours a month, and be enrolled at least half-time in an educational program beginning no later than December 31, 2026. Certain individuals are excluded from these requirements, such as those with serious medical conditions or dependent children.
For taxes, the bill is a clawback to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It makes the increased standard deduction permanent and provides an additional increase for joint filers through 2028, and increases the maximum amount of the child tax credits and the limit on the itemized tax deduction for home mortgage interest. It increases the limitation on the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes (commonly known as the SALT deduction cap) — but it gets rid of residential clean energy tax credits and establishes a new certification program for claiming the earned income tax credit.
Congressmember Adriano Espaillat (NY-13) said the HR1 Bill doesn’t even live up to the promises that Republicans made to the American people. “Americans were told that this bill would reduce the deficit and restore the middle class,” said Espaillat in a statement. “Instead, the bill would allow for millions in tax cuts to the very wealthy and add trillions of dollars to the national debt.”
Jennifer Driver, senior director of Reproductive Rights at State Innovation Exchange, took a second to narrow down the focus to impacts on New York State. “The problem is that while we’re talking about this now, the conversation needs to continue about the impact of this bill,” said Driver. “We have seen where our country, our communities, our people have been really shortsighted, and we allow our politicians to get off the hook for passing such devastating pieces of legislation.”
New York is one of 12 states that have large rural populations and have expanded Medicaid under the ACA. The state is at risk of losing more than $6 billion in funding, as well as four rural hospitals with labor and delivery wards.
Driver pointed out that some Republican states, like Alaska via Senator Lisa Murkowski, haggled to get exemptions put into the bill. Alaska has provisions concerning the production of oil and gas from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). “The Republicans that were the holdouts that came back and voted for the bill had carve-outs for their state, so it was, ‘I’m going to screw over all the other states as long as you can keep certain things in my state,’” said Driver.
Jeffries said now is the time to pivot focus to electing more Democrats in the upcoming midterm and gubernatorial races in 2026.
“There are seats in New York, seats in New Jersey, seats in Michigan, seats in California, seats in Wisconsin, seats in Pennsylvania, seats in Arizona that, by way of example, are going to determine in large measure who controls the House in the aftermath of the midterm election,” said Jeffries. “Every single one of those states [has] Democratic governors; there are Democratic attorney generals, Democratic secretaries of state … that’s kind of the landscape that we find ourselves in. And I’ve got trust in those leaders to make sure that there are actual free and fair elections.”