This week at Unbreaking, June 27
IN A RARE BRIGHT MOMENT since we started Unbreaking, this week we have some actually encouraging news to share: many of the cruelest provisions in the Trump administration’s budget megabill were ruled out this week by the Senate parliamentarian. What this means: these provisions cannot be passed through the budget reconciliation process. We have the details below, and expect to be able to share more next week as the budget process continues to unfold.
Medicaid
On June 26, after listening to arguments from both sides, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled several Medicaid cuts out of the reconciliation process. These cuts included a ban on gender-affirming care for Medicaid and CHIP participants of all ages, and proposed restrictions on Medicaid coverage for non-citizens (including asylum seekers and those with legal temporary protected status).
This leaves the GOP Senate majority with three options: Revise the ruled-out parts of the bill to try to get them ruled back in (very difficult for these cuts, which have little relevance to the budget itself), override the Parliamentarian (which the majority leader reiterated on June 26 that they will not do), or move the bill forward without them. The bill will likely move forward without these provisions; we’ll be keeping an eye on what happens next.
Our Medicaid explainer has the full story on what’s under threat and the countermoves in play.
Transgender Healthcare
As noted above, one of the proposed provisions in the Trump administration’s budget megabill was a ban on gender-affirming care for people of all ages under the Medicaid and CHIP programs—which, combined, cover more than 79 million people in the US. But on June 26, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that this provision cannot be pushed through the budget reconciliation process.
This means that if Republicans want to keep this provision in the bill as it is currently written they will have to either overrule the Parliamentarian—something that the majority leader said yesterday that they would not do—or try to pass the bill with a higher threshold of 60 votes, which would require seven Democrats to take their side (unlikely, given recent Democratic Senate votes on trans rights).
Relatedly, on June 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee state law (PDF) banning gender-affirming care for adolescents. While disappointing, the ruling preserves the current status quo: states with existing bans on trans healthcare will be permitted to keep those bans. The ruling does not remove healthcare from anyone who currently has it.
While the budget rulings are encouraging, we continue to see transgender healthcare as critically endangered. We’re tracking all the attacks in our explainer, as well as ongoing community responses.
Postal Service
Another move tucked into the budget reconciliation bill was language instructing the postal service to auction off all electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure, including what the USPS acquired as part of modernizing the delivery fleet of more than 245,000 vehicles. A letter (PDF) from the vice president of USPS’s Government Relations and Public Policy department explained that such an auction would yield little to no funds, as the market for used mail trucks and charging infrastructure—much of it buried beneath parking lots—is nonexistent. In fact, the auction would cost the USPS as much as $1.5 billion and “seriously cripple our ability to replace an aging and obsolete delivery fleet.” Fortunately, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that this provision cannot be passed through the budget reconciliation process. What happens from here remains to be seen, but for the moment, it looks like the USPS will get to keep its fleet of EVs.
We have the details about all the critical services the Postal Service provides, and the state of the threats against it in our explainer.
Up next
We’re keeping eyes on the budget process to see what Congress does from here.
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