Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) on Trump Bill: “A Punch in the Face of Rural America”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Turning now to the United States President Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill is signed into law. Millions of people on Medicaid are set to lose their health insurance. Michel Martin speaks with the governor of Kentucky about the real-life effect this could have on rural communities like his own.

 

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Christiane. Governor Beshear, thank you so much for speaking with us.

 

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: Thanks for having me on.

 

MARTIN: So you’ve, you – let’s just go right to it. You called the President’s Tax and spending Bill – which he and his Republican allies have called the one big beautiful bill – “the worst legislation you’ve seen in your lifetime.” As, as briefly as you can tell us why.

 

BESHEAR: This is the most destructive bill I’ve seen in my lifetime. In Kentucky, it’s gonna kick 200,000 people off their healthcare coverage. That’s gonna include kids and seniors. It’s gonna include people who need cancer treatment and who will lose their lives without that coverage. On top of that, it’s going to fire 20,000 healthcare workers from all around Kentucky, and it may shutter up to 35 rural hospitals. So whether you are on private insurance or on Medicaid, if you are a rural American, you’re gonna have to drive hours just to see a doctor. And then what it does to our rural economies, it’s gonna be incredibly painful because if you remove hundreds of doctors and nurses and orderlies from that rural hospital, that’s typically the second largest employer in that community, everybody feels the pain, the coffee shop, the restaurant, the bank. I mean, this is a direct attack on rural America that’s gonna make it so much harder for struggling Americans to get by.

 

MARTIN: Let’s just talk about the, the patients themselves. One of the arguments for this bill that it’s supporters keep insisting on is that it will shore up the finances of Medicaid in particular, so that in particular children, in particular people who are the most vulnerable, people who are disabled, that it’ll stabilize the finances of Medicaid so that these people, in particular, will continue to get care. You’re saying that that’s just not true. 

 

BESHEAR: It’s not because if it was, they would’ve exempted them from large parts of the bill. The way they’re gonna get their quote unquote savings is by increasing the level of paperwork, making you prove your eligibility multiple extra times when there are already so many checks in there. And so what happens when a family has a child with a severe disability that is covered by Medicaid, doesn’t check a certain box once or twice a year that family could lose coverage for up to six months. It is mean, it is cruel. 

Think about that, that senior, because 70% of our long-term care costs in Kentucky are covered by Medicaid. That senior who is already getting significant care, whose family probably has to fill out those forms, if it’s not done right, that person loses that long-term care coverage. And so that family has to take them back into their home, try to cover those expenses, which is likely impossible. Probably can’t go to work because of the full-time help that’s needed. This is the damage it’s going to cause to people’s life. And they’re gonna know exactly who did it to them, President Trump and the Congressional Republicans.

 

MARTIN: Talk a little bit, if you would, about the, the impact on rural hospitals and the financing and why you’re so convinced that it’ll have such a devastating effect on rural hospitals in particular. Because again, the administration and the, their allies say that there’s a fund specifically set up to support rural hospitals. So tell us why you say that you think this many hospitals will close and why it’ll have such a severe impact.

 

BESHEAR: The way I know that rural hospitals are gonna get hit hard and many are gonna have to close, is that they are not only telling me, they’re telling the country. The Kentucky Hospital Association is a pretty conservative group, but they have been out with these projections saying, please do not do this to one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. And they’ve been very clear about the numbers. This is over a trillion dollar cut to the healthcare industry. That’s a trillion dollars of revenue that supports these rural hospitals. And there is a $50 billion fund to help rural hospitals. The reason it won’t work is math. It is grossly insufficient. And when you look at rural hospitals, the reason they get hit more is that there is a larger Medicaid population than others. And there are fewer people that may be traveling to them.

But what it means is you’re gonna have to drive hours just to see your, your family practitioner. You’re not going to have the same specialties. Think about OBGYNs. 40% of all births in Kentucky are covered by Medicaid. And that’s an, an area that that hospitals struggle on the finances. What you’re gonna see is in rural America having to drive hours just to get to a big city to, to even give birth. It’s going to have massive implications for our country and, and for urban America too. But just, I mean, this is a punch in the face of, of rural America and, and my state.

 

MARTIN: Governor, you, your congressional delegation is, is weighted toward Republicans, your delegation was kind of split. Your senators split. One voted for the bill, one voted against the Bill Rand Paul voted against the bill. Mitch McConnell, who is the longtime Republican leader in the Senate, voted for the bill in the house. The, the, the one Democrat in the Congressional delegation voted against it along with one Republican Thomas Massie. I was just curious what you make of that. Why, why do you think that they split, which they all normally don’t?

 

BESHEAR: Well, I’m gonna do something that people probably don’t expect, and that’s to give Thomas Massey and Rand Paul some credit. And I’m willing to do that because my job isn’t to be the best Democratic governor of Kentucky. It’s just to be the best governor of Kentucky for my people.
Rand Paul and Thomas Massey are, are just about the only two individuals. Save a couple others that were willing to stand up to the president and I’ll give ’em credit for standing up on fiscal grounds because this is a hugely fiscally irresponsible bill. Maybe one of the most fiscally irresponsible bills I’ve ever seen. It’s gonna add trillions to the national debt, and it’s gonna push hundreds of millions of dollars of new costs on states blowing up our otherwise balanced budget. But what I won’t give ’em credit for is that they are not fighting this bill because it hurts people. And it does. It hurts people in kicking them off their healthcare and firing healthcare workers and closing rural hospitals. But the cuts to SNAP are also mean that seniors and children are gonna go hungry at night, are gonna wake up with hunger pains. And this, in my faith, the, the miracle of the fishes and the loaves is one of the only miracles in every book of the Gospel. What it means is, in a country that grows plenty of food, enough for everyone, nobody should starve.

 

MARTIN: Well, SNAP is food assistance for people who perhaps aren’t aware of it. It used to used to be called food stamps, now it’s called SNAP. And to the, to the issue of of the deficit, the Congressional budget Officer’s scoring says that the Senate bill, which was the one that was adopted, adds even more to the deficit that the House bill would have.

 

BESHEAR: What, what’s amazing to me on that is that, is that these Senate Republicans just aren’t telling people the truth. They’re telling people that those numbers are wrong. And why the Congressional Budget Office was created was to have a nonpartisan group that would tell you what things cost and guess who created it, Congress. The same Senate and, and the same house in, in previous sessions. And so this idea that you can argue the, the, the numbers, is just wrong and and blowing smoke,

 

MARTIN: One of the arguments that they make is that this bill will somehow generate enough economic activity that it’ll make up for the loss of, I don’t know, spending, I guess, I guess that’s the argument that it’ll sort of generate this explosion of economic activity. And you are convinced that that’s wrong.

 

BESHEAR: Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen. This bill –

MARTIN: How do you know? How do you know?

BESHEAR: Because they’ve cut a trillion dollars of revenue out of one of the fastest growing industries in America. If you cut a trillion dollars out of the economy, out of out of healthcare, then you are not going to generate extra dollars out of it. And then on top of that, you have a tariff policy that is destructive, that is slowing our economy. We’re seeing fewer projects move forward, and we’re seeing small businesses lay people off.  But here’s another point about this bill. It’s gonna hurt worker productivity because if you are a worker in rural America that concurrently go see a doctor in your community in the morning, but now you have to drive several hours, you gotta take the whole day off of work. But then if your parent comes back into your home, you’ve gotta get them to their doctor’s appointment two hours away. So you take another day off work, and let’s say you have two kids, hopefully you can get their appointment on the same day. You’ve gotta take yet another day off work. Or if you lose your coverage, you get sick more often and you miss more days of work. That makes our country and our workforce less productive. 

 

MARTIN: And I’m just curious why, if this is so obvious to you, it wasn’t as obvious to the other people who represent your state? And I’m just wondering why you think you see it so differently.

 

BESHEAR: Well, what I see are people who lack the courage to do the right thing and, and have abdicated their oath of office. They were elected to be the best senator or congressman for their constituents not to do the bidding of the president. And they’re more concerned with seeing the president’s smile at them than whether or not they have a rural hospital open in their district or whether people are or are not starving in their district. This was a test of basic humanity. And those that voted for this bill failed.

 

MARTIN: But then again, these, I mean, presumably these are the same people who voted for President Trump. And his argument is that this is what they voted for. So –

 

BESHEAR: I don’t think anybody voted to lose their job. I don’t think anybody voted to lose their healthcare coverage. I don’t think anybody voted to have their, their rural community and economy hit and impacted potentially even destroyed. You know, president Trump is president because he convinced the last group of movable voters that he was more focused on helping them pay the bills at the end of the month. And that the vice president was distracted on a whole lot of other issues. But everything in his term is making it so much harder. Seeing the doctor is going to be harder, paying the bills under tariffs are, are going to be harder. And people are starting to feel betrayed. And certainly if you voted for President Trump and you lose your job because of this bill, you are being betrayed.

 

MARTIN: Well, except that the way this bill is structured, you know, governor, is that the tax cuts come in sooner and the spending cuts come in later. And it was structured that way. The tax cuts come in before the midterm elections where presumably, if people experience what you say, they will, they could hold people accountable for, for their votes. But the tax cuts come in before the midterms and most of the spending cuts come in in the out years after the midterms. So given that reality, how do you persuade people that this is what you say it is?

 

BESHEAR: Yeah. You’re gonna see the pain and you’re gonna see it earlier than they think. Because if you are a business and you know you’re going to lose a lot of revenue in two to three years, you don’t wait until that moment and fall off the cliff. They’re having to make plans now on what lines to cut, on what services to provide, on what hospitals might have to be closed. Those that, that thought just pushing this off would prevent people from seeing it first. That’s really wrong, that we’re gonna do something really painful, but we’re gonna put it until after the next election so that you reelect us. I mean, that’s, that’s wrong. That’s not what public service is supposed to be about. But they also don’t understand how these businesses work when the decisions are gonna have to be made. These hospitals are gonna have to rightsize their budgets before the full cut comes.

 

MARTIN: So you said that you were elected to be the best governor of Kentucky, not the best democratic governor of Kentucky, but you are a Democrat and you know, your, your fortunes aren’t always tied to the sort of the National Democratic Party. That’s been made clear by the fact that you’ve been reelected, you’ve been elected and reelected again in, in your state, which does lean conservative. But overall, do you think that the Democrats have made the case that you are making?

 

BESHEAR: Well, I think the, the destructiveness of this bill is fact. So Democrats need to be out there talking about it, and the news needs to be out there talking about it. What we need is for, is for the people of the United States to understand what is specifically in the bill and what the Congressional Budget Office says will happen because of the bill. You know, in previous administrations that was considered fact. It still is. And so I think that there’s not just Democrats, but all of us that have an obligation for people to know what this bill does and who did it to us.

 

MARTIN: Well, in addition to that, though, there are provisions that are meant to be attractive to lower income people or middle income people like the tax on tips. The pre– this was another one of the president’s campaign promises saying that he was going to add a new tax. And also he’s promising that, you know, most seniors won’t see taxes on their social security. But I am wondering whether you think that that would be, that those provisions will be enough to make it attractive to people, even though you say it will be more harmful than it will be beneficial.

 

BESHEAR: It won’t be attractive to, to people. And this is why you don’t put this much stuff in one bill and including some provisions that appear to just be buying off someone for a vote here or a vote there. Sending something to, to their state. The people you’re talking about that rely on taxes and tips are the people that live on the margins and how they get their healthcare. Many of ’em may be getting it through the state run exchanges, which are gonna take a beating as well. Many of them are the working poor that are otherwise covered on Medicaid, or they have a family member at home who are covered on, on Medicaid. They are the people working in that rural restaurant that now are gonna have fewer people coming in because so many people that have affordable income have lost their jobs. And when you think about the tax cuts, yeah, a tax cut would be really nice for a doctor if they still had a job. But if they lose their job because of this bill, they have no income and there’s no tax cut.

 

MARTIN: So Governor, what do you see as your role now? I mean, what, what are you gonna do? I mean, you got to manage the fallout, whatever it is. How, how are you gonna do that?

 

BESHEAR: The best I can for my people. I love the people of Kentucky and it’s my job to fight for them regardless of their party registration to try to move us not to the right or the left, but move us forward. So I’m gonna look –

 

MARTIN: What does that look like? What does that look like? 

 

BESHEAR: I’m gonna look for every opportunity to help people make sure that they correctly fill out those forms to see what type of extra services and, and advice that we can give them. But no state, not one state in the country has a budget where they can simply backfill these dollars. Everything we’re gonna do, we’re gonna do our best. But the people of America are gonna feel the pain because of the size and scope of the damage of this big ugly bill.

 

MARTIN: So before we let you go, and, you know, I kind of hate this game that we have to play, you know, where you’re gonna run for president, you’re not, you know, you know what I mean? But, but you have to be thinking about it. I mean, you have to be thinking about if you feel that the situation is as dire as you say that it is. So would you at least tell us whether you’re thinking about it?

 

BESHEAR: If you’d asked me a couple years ago whether I was considering this, I’d say no. My family’s been through a lot. I love this job and it is more than enough to be able to serve the people of your state for eight years. But I do not wanna leave my kids a broken country. So this year and next year in my job as governor, I’m gonna be working to create jobs and, and try to expand healthcare, what I can with this, with this bill. To build safer roads and bridges improve our public schools and make sure everybody feels safe in their community.
Next year I’m the head of the Democratic Governor’s Associations and we’re gonna be playing in a lot of states where the Republican governors have said nothing about this big ugly bill and their people are, are suffering. And then after that when I sit down and, and think about it, my question is gonna be, am I a person that can repair what’s broken? Am I a person that could heal this country because we can’t go on with the US versus the thems. We can’t go on divided when our pledge says we will keep our country indivisible. So if, if, if I’m that candidate, I’ll think about it. If someone else is, I’ll be fully behind them. ’cause I care a lot more about this country and its future for everybody’s children than I do about what role I might play.

 

MARTIN: Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Governor, thank you so much for talking with us once again.

 

BESHEAR: Thanks for having me again.