Schumer’s Plot To Defund Rural Healthcare Goes Down In Flames

The Senate rejected a Democrat-led spending plan along party lines on Friday that would have rolled back a $50 billion investment in rural health care as well as enacted a spate of left-wing priorities that Republicans immediately declared dead-on-arrival.

Democratic leaders unveiled a counter spending proposal on Wednesday to fund the government for four weeks with an accompanying price tag of roughly $1.5 trillion, arguing Republicans’ clean stopgap plan that would extend government funding largely at current levels failed to include healthcare language among other items. Senate Republicans blasted their counterparts for proposing to undo cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting funding while nixing billions of dollars in rural health funding for their constituents. (RELATED: Fetterman Tells Democrats To Stop Flipping Out About Kimmel And Worry About Schumer Shutdown ‘Chaos’)

“To be fair, Democrats do make some spending cuts. Regrettably, those cuts target our nation’s most vulnerable hospitals in rural communities,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said on the Senate floor on Friday. “Senator Schumer is demanding $1 trillion in new spending for keeping the government open for four weeks. He is sending billions of dollars to foreign countries but slashing billions of dollars for rural hospitals in our country.”

“Senator Schumer is demanding a far-left wish list – or else he will shut the government down,” Barrasso continued. “Make no mistake. Republicans will hold Democrats accountable for supporting Senator Schumer’s dangerous political theater.”

Congress is up against a Sept. 30 funding deadline to avert a government shutdown. The House of Representatives approved a GOP stopgap spending measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR) with just one Democratic lawmaker voting “no” on Friday morning.

Senate Democrats successfully tanked the House-passed CR later on Friday despite the measure including no partisan policy riders or cuts to government funding. Democrats were not able to specify what they opposed within the bill when pressed by the Daily Caller News Foundation earlier in the week.

Schumer, however, declared that spending plan a non-starter, citing costly healthcare provisions that he argued must be attached to any government funding bill. The lead Democrat argued that the two competing CRs illustrated a “glaring contrast” between the two parties.

Republicans agreed with Schumer’s comments, pointing to the elimination of the $50 billion rural health stabilization fund in the Democrats’ CR.

“You could only conclude that Democrats don’t care about rural America,” Republican Ohio Sen. Jon Husted told the DCNF. “In this particular case, these hospitals are counting on us to find a way to keep their doors open and improve the way that they serve rural America.”

“If it was part of this administration’s proposal — if it has anything to do with the administration — they [Democrats] are going to oppose it,” Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds told the DCNF.

Republicans created a $50 billion program for rural health providers to help offset reforms to Medicaid in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is beginning to roll out the funding and opened applications on Monday for states to apply for a slice of the money.

“This program is a win for every rural community across the country, and the Administration urges every single Governor to apply,” White House spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita told the DCNF in a statement.

Senate Democrats’ proposed CR would have eliminated the program by undoing Republicans’ reforms to Medicaid in their budget bill that passed in July. The DCNF spoke to six Democratic senators on Friday who said they were unaware of the fund’s elimination or sidestepped questions about axing the program and proceeded to attack Republicans for not extending Biden-era health insurance subsidies as part of a government funding package.

“What I do know is that people are going to be shocked in this country to see their premiums go up, to see hospitals close this fall,” Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy told the DCNF. “Republicans are going to have a chance today to vote for a continuing resolution that prevents this massive increase in premiums and this massive closure of healthcare to move forward.”

The Democrat-proposed CR would force the government to borrow another $1.5 trillion to fund the government through Oct. 31, according to analysis from the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.

“The Schumer Shutdown Plan reads like a draft of the future platform for the 2028 Democrat National Convention,” Barrasso said on the Senate floor Thursday. “There are COVID bonus payments. This is in spite of the fact that the COVID crisis ended years ago.”

“Liberal states are rewarded for giving taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal immigrants. They want able-bodied, working-aged individuals who refuse to work to continue getting Medicaid,” Barrasso continued while detailing Democrats’ proposed plan. “They want to send taxpayer dollars overseas to pay for climate projects.”

Democrats’ proposal would have restored more than roughly $1 trillion in federal Medicaid spending that was slashed in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Reforms that Democrats would have eliminated include new work requirements for able-bodied adults enrolled in Medicaid and restrictive language barring illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid, Medicare and Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The Schumer spending plan would have also enacted a permanent extension of the expiring Biden-era ACA subsidies, costing taxpayers roughly $380 billion, according to the Economic Policy Innovation Center.

Democratic leaders also proposed restoring cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting funding that Republicans successfully rescinded in July. The proposal similarly sought to undo a proposed rescission the White House sent to Congress in September that would cancel an additional $5 billion in funding for foreign aid and U.S. contributions to international organizations.

“We’re not going to do that,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Friday in a reference to Schumer’s counter offer. “Chuck Schumer chose to make this a partisan exercise, and Hakeem Jeffries as well, and it’s wrong to do that.”

Andi Shae Napier and Caden Olson contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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