Sen ed markey is fed up with the Trump administration’s health care turmoil and is gearing up for a Democratic reversal of the Republican’s sweeping changes after the midterm elections.
At POLITICO’s health care summit on Tuesday, the Massachusetts Democrat condemned the trillion-dollar health care cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer. He said the White House’s proposed 2027 budget, which was released in early April, marks a continuing effort by Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “undermine public health in our country.”
“All of this needs to be put together as a story that the American people can understand heading into the election this fall,” he said. “Because in my opinion, the Republicans are going to have a huge impact, and much of it is because of what they’ve done to the health care system.”
Markey also called on Kennedy — who will testify Wednesday on the proposed budget before the Senate Health Committee, on which Markey sits — to resign.
“He’s basically a public health threat to our country,” Markey said.
The senator, who chairs the Senate Health Committee’s primary Health and Retirement Security subcommittee, has big plans to reverse Republicans’ far-reaching health care measures if Democrats win both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. He wants his party to advance a reconciliation bill that would undo GOP cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and double the budget of the National Institutes of Health, sending the package straight to Trump’s desk.
Markey said, “We’re ready for that fight, Mr. President. Let’s get to it.” “This should be the agenda of the Democratic Party in this election, and then this is what we will do next year.”
Trump’s 2027 budget proposes to cut NIH funding by about $5 billion, or 10 percent. Congress is not expected to approve that cut, as both Republicans and Democrats rejected the 40 percent cut requested by Trump for 2026, and according to some GOP lawmakers. have recently said they will continue to oppose the cuts","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026/04/11/trumps-budget-hawk-is-still-trying-to-slash-medical-research-congress-is-saying-no-00866582","_Identification": :"0000019d-b0be-d084-a1bd-fefeb8810001","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-b0be-d084-a1bd-fefeb8810002","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>have recently stated that they will continue to oppose the cuts To the Biomedical Research Agency.
Markey, who is up for re-election in November, said Trump’s continued “attack” on the NIH, as well as the cuts to Medicaid and the ACA that he signed into law, will not be good for Americans in the midterms, with rising health care costs expected to remain top of voters’ minds.
“Health care is really a sticking point in this election,” he said. “The lives of those swing voters across the country are being completely devastated by Trump’s policies.”
