Panicking Nebraska lawmakers are facing the consequences of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill this legislative session.
“Lawmakers are currently working to fill a projected $471 million budget deficit before the end of the 60-day legislative session,” reports the Omaha World-Herald. “Under [Republican Gov. Jim] Pillen’s plan, DHHS [Department of Health and Human Services] would shoulder the largest portion of state funding reductions, losing $22 million this fiscal year and another $130.4 million the next year.”
Republican tax cuts were reportedly a chief contributor to the state’s capsizing budget. Speaker John Arch (the top official in Nebraska's unicameral legislature) blamed the state’s lower revenues on the legislature’s decision in 2023 to cut individual and corporate income tax rates, which subsequently gutted the state’s annual revenues.
But the Nebraska Examiner reports another contributor to the deficit to be Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that Congress passed this summer. Nebraska’s Department of Revenue, overseen by Republican appointee James Kamm, released a report last September estimating that the bill would cost Nebraska’s state government about $216 million over the next two fiscal years, which was factored into budget forecasts.
Once news got out of the severity of the cuts this week, opponents and family advocates lined up to lob outrage during a public hearing at the Capitol, furious at how much the governor’s cuts would raise health care costs and limit access to Nebraskan health treatment. Groups opposed to Pillen’s DHHS cuts included the Nebraska Medical Association, the Nebraska Hospital Association, Children’s Nebraska, the American Cancer Society and the Nebraska Health Care Association, among others.
“Over the course of a nearly five-hour hearing, testifiers expressed concerns about a range of specific cuts, including the biomedical research cut, a $2.7 million cut to pediatric cancer research and a $4.7 million cut from the state’s Health Information Exchange,” reported the Omaha World-Herald. “The most common concern, however, was a proposed $18 million cut for the elimination of retroactive Medicaid eligibility. Federal law offers Medicaid coverage for medical expenses incurred up to 90 days before an application is submitted, but it allows states to reduce this period to 30 days through a waiver.”
Several critics said the change would make it harder to treat infants and children.
Megan Connelly, vice president of Community Health and Advocacy at Children’s Nebraska, said nearly half of Children’s Nebraska’s patients were covered by Medicaid last year, but healthcare providers were only reimbursed for roughly 20 percent of the retroactive costs.
“Behind these numbers are very sick Nebraska babies and children and families navigating a medical crisis,” Connelly told lawmakers, adding that Medicaid applications for newborns cannot be submitted during a pregnancy, so the 30-day deadline would be even more challenging in the event of complications during birth.
The Omaha World-Herald reported the cuts forced a representative of Complete Children’s Health to question if his organization can even continue accepting Medicaid patients.
