It was thoughtful of Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., to share all the good news that will result from the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill in a recent op-ed. How fortunate we are that he and our other three congressional representatives supported it with their voices and their votes.
I'm sure it was just an oversight that he forgot to include a few other pieces of info about the BBB and what it will do to West Virginians.
Such as the $1.4 trillion cut to Medicaid, SNAP and ACA subsidies. That's $1.4 trillion. While they tried to justify it as the elimination of fraud, waste and abuse, the fact is, they made no attempt to identify any of those things. They just cut with big round numbers.
Here in West Virginia, 30% of Moore's constituents are on Medicaid and 277,400 receive SNAP payments. How many will lose or suffer reduced coverage remains to be seen, but we know it will be a significant portion of that population.
He forgot to include the effect on health care availability. Health care economists project the closure of 55 hospitals nationwide because of the Medicaid cuts, most of those in rural areas where health care accessibility is already suffering. Those same economists project that seven of those closures will occur in West Virginia. That's 12.7% of the projected closures nationwide happening right here in little old West Virginia.
He touched on the tax benefits to middle- and lower-income families. Removing the tax on tips, overtime and Social Security will admittedly have a positive effect on middle- and lower-income households and retirees, but how far will that go when the cost of health care skyrockets? Or the higher prices consumers will pay as a result of the tariffs? He forgot to include the good news for our citizens in the top .01% of income earners, who will enjoy a federal tax reduction averaging $100,000. Those are obviously the constituents our congressional representatives care most about.
Yes, the bill Riley Moore is so proud of is big. How beautiful it is depends on where you reside on the economic scale. For many of his constituents, it won't be beautiful at all.
