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joni ernst
Poll Shows GOP Senators Who Help Trump Gut Medicaid Could Pay Dearly
"Now is the time for these senators to practice what they preach. A vote for the current bill is a vote to take away their constituents' healthcare—full stop."
Jun 06, 2025
New survey data out Friday shows that Republicans are wrong if they remain unconcerned about public sentiment as it relates to the evisceration of Medicaid or healthcare support systems that would result from passage of their colossal legislation now making its way through Congress—a bill that, if passed, would see coverage stripped from an estimated 11-16 million people in the coming years.
According to new KFF Health Tracking Poll released Friday, anxiety is high among voters, across the political spectrum, about the negative impacts resulting from cuts to Medicaid or reductions in support for marketplace insurance plans supported by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
"Most of the public is worried about the consequences of significant reductions in federal Medicaid spending, including among many groups that would be directly impacted by the cuts," KFF noted in its release of the new survey data. "Partisanship drives these attitudes to a certain extent, but about two-thirds or more of Republicans enrolled in Medicaid and those with lower incomes are worried that Medicaid spending reductions would hurt their families and their communities."
KFF added that most adults in the country, based on the poll's findings, "are worried significant reductions in federal Medicaid spending will lead to more uninsured people and will strain healthcare providers in their communities. About 7 in 10 adults (72%) are worried that a significant reduction in federal funding for Medicaid would lead to an increase in the share of uninsured children and adults in the U.S., including nearly half (46%) who are 'very worried' and 1 in 4 (25%) who are 'somewhat worried.'"
KFF notes that more than a quarter of Medicaid enrollees in the country are Republican, including 1 in 5 who identify with President Donald Trump's far-right MAGA movement. At the same time, nearly half of likely ACA marketplace enrollees identify as Republican.
The new poll results, as The Washington Post notes:
The findings illustrate the political perils of upending the public health insurance program as Senate Republicans feud over Medicaid cuts. As they face pressure to slash spending to finance President Donald Trump's sweeping tax and immigration legislation, they risk alienating their own supporters who depend on the program.
"Medicaid is really a popular program, and a large majority of Americans do not want to see decreases in spending," Liz Hamel, director of public opinion and survey research at KFF, told the Post. "These findings reflect that many people, whether or not they rely on Medicaid, see it as vital to their communities."
Tony Carrk, executive director of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, said Friday that Republicans in the Senate would be wise to stick to their public promises that Medicaid would not be cut or harmed, specifically referencing Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
"Now is the time for these Senators to practice what they preach," said Caark. "A vote for the current bill is a vote to take away their constituents' healthcare—full stop."
"If these senators do the right thing, they will save the healthcare of millions of people from Alaska to Maine," he added. "But if they throw their support behind this bill, not only will they have lied to the American people, they will be ripping healthcare from those who need it the most, while the richest Americans—including many of them—could financially benefit."
Last week, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) sparked fury when she said at a town hall, in response to a constituent warning that "people will die" if Medicaid cuts went through, that "we all are going to die."
On Capitol Hill this week, the advocacy group Social Security Works tried to catch up with Ernst about the comments, but she would not respond to questions.
"By the way," the group later posted, "Iowans are PISSED about sacrificing their Medicaid for a billionaire tax handout" and pointed to a local protest in Ernst's home state where community members rallied against cuts.
Citing a new study showing that more than 50,000 people a year will die prematurely if the Medicaid cuts proposed by Republicans goes through, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said, “In the wealthiest country in the world, we should be guaranteeing health care to all as a human right, not taking health care away from millions of seniors and working families to pay for tax breaks for billionaires. As the Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I will be doing everything that I can to see that this disastrous bill is defeated."
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Iowa Democrat JD Scholten Launches Senate Run After Joni Ernst Controversy
"I don't think there's anything worse that you could do than cut Medicaid, cut SNAP benefits for everyday Iowans just so you can give billionaires bigger tax breaks," Scholten said.
Jun 02, 2025
Iowa Democratic state Rep. JD Scholten, who represents parts of Sioux City, announced Monday that he is mounting a challenge to U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst—the Iowa Republican who is up for reelection in 2026 and who has come under scrutiny in recent days for comments she made downplaying constituent concerns over GOP efforts to cut Medicaid.
"After her comments over the weekend, I've been thinking about it for a while, but that's when I just said: This is unacceptable and you've gotta jump in," Scholten said, according to the Iowa outlet The Sioux City Journal. "At the end of the day, though, it's not about her, it's not about me, it's about the people of Iowa deserving better.
"I don't think there's anything worse that you could do than cut Medicaid, cut SNAP benefits for everyday Iowans just so you can give billionaires bigger tax breaks," he added, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. "That is not Iowa in my mind."
Scholten has served in the state House since 2023. In 2024, Scholten won his contest by 6.9 points in a district that U.S. President Donald Trump won.
The Democrat has run twice for Iowa's 4th Congressional District. In 2020, he lost to Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra, and in 2018, he narrowly lost to then-longtime Republican Rep. Steve King. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaigned for Scholten during his 2018 bid and Rolling Stone once described Scholten as a "prairie populist."
Scholten, 45, is a pitcher for the baseball team the Sioux City Explorers.
If he prevailed over Ernst, he would take over a seat that she has held since 2015.
Ernst spoke at a town hall in Parkersburg, Iowa last week and was responding to a question about the impact of the U.S. House-passed GOP reconciliation bill, which includes cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, when an attendee shouted that "people will die" as a result of the cuts.
Then Ernst said, "Well, we all are going to die."
Ernst later posted a video on Instagram, in which she offered a mock apology.
"I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth," she said. "So I apologize, and I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well." The video appeared to be filmed in a cemetery.
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'What a Shitty Person': Joni Ernst Turns 'We're All Going to Die' Non-Apology Into a Twofer
"Against all odds, Joni Ernst has made it worse."
Jun 01, 2025
Just a day after Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa generated nationwide disgust by suggesting in a town hall event that deadly GOP cuts to Medicaid are not that bad because people "are all going to die" anyway, her trolling non-apology posted online over the weekend only made things worse for many critics as she joked about the Tooth Fairy and hinted that people concerned about ripping healthcare away from tens of millions of people—including children, the poor, and the elderly—are somehow not that bright.
The optics of Ernst's sarcastic video, which appeared to be filmed in a cemetery with grave markers in the background, did not go over well.
While Ernst—who is up for reelection in 2026—says at the outset that she is "sincerely" sorry for her remarks on Friday, it becomes clear the apology is nothing but a troll of her critics when she adds that she "assumed that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth."
"So I apologize," said Ernst. "And I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well."
The legislation Republicans are now pushing through Congress, if signed into law, would result in devastating cuts to Medicaid that experts estimate would result in increased preventable deaths—all to pay for billions of dollars in additional tax giveaways for the nation's richest people and corporations.
New analysis released by the Center for American Progress in May show an estimated "6.9 million people losing coverage by 2034 as a result of congressional Republicans' proposed paperwork requirements would lead to more than 21,600 avoidable deaths nationally each year. This translates to lives lost in every congressional district with Medicaid expansion enrollees."
As columnist Mike Lofgren, a former Republican staffer in Congress, wrote for Common Dreams last month, it is not a stretch to say that the contemporary GOP shows by its policy agenda that it "wants you to die."
To make his argument, Logfren writes, "If someone commits a reckless act whose adverse consequences are clearly foreseeable, then for all practical purposes, that person willed the consequences. This principle—who wills the means wills the ends—is applicable in law, but should also be valid in everyday life. It should particularly apply to the behavior of public officials who wield power over the rest of us."
It was the point the audience member at the town hall Friday was clearly trying to make when she yelled, "People are going to die." What's striking is how explicit Ernst's disregard for that warning was in that moment and—perhaps more startling and concerning—in the days since.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pushed back on Ernst's Friday comments by telling CNN in a weekend interview, "I think everybody in that audience knows that they're going to die. They would just rather die in old age at 85 or 90, instead of dying at 40."
Chris Murphy on Joni Ernst: "I think everybody in that audience knows they're going to die, they would just rather die in old age at 85 or 90 instead of dying at 40. And the reality is that when you lose your healthcare, you are much more at risk of early death." pic.twitter.com/TBmZOl4wJr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2025
Ernst's comment made headlines nationwide, including in the Des Moines Register, the largest paper in her home state of Iowa.
In a takedown of Ernst's scripted performance in Saturday's video, political podcaster Fred Wellman, part of the Meidas Touch media network, concluded that the entire episode not ony proves Ernst is emblematic of an increasingly heartless and cruel Republican Party—"this is MAGA," he said—but also that she is a very "shitty person" on an individual level:
"She thought it was so clever," said Wellman. "She owned them libs, didn't she? She's owning them libs. But guess what? She's up for reelection, folks. She's sure she's gonna win, because it's Iowa, what could go wrong?"
"Let's make sure it goes wrong," said Wellman.
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