Senate Republicans suffered a massive blow to their budget reconciliation package Thursday morning when the Senate parliamentarian threw out several cost-saving provisions related to Medicaid. 

Changes to federal financing for state-administered Medicaid programs were essential to funding the tax cuts baked into President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, sending Republicans into a scramble to get the bill passed by the president’s July 4 deadline. 

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The Senate parliamentarian specifically eliminated changes to key provisions in the Senate Finance Committee provision of the bill, including cuts to provider taxes, federal medical assistance percentages, and immigrant eligibility for Medicaid. 

Budget reconciliation bills in the Senate only require a simple 51-vote majority, so congressional majorities often attempt to use the process to ram through controversial legislation that would not pass the normal 60-vote majority threshold. 

The Senate parliamentarian, under the Byrd Rule, must review reconciliation bills line-by-line to remove provisions that are extraneous to the budget process. 

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the leading Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement Thursday that Democrats are continuing to fight provisions in what his party has labeled as “this Big, Beautiful Betrayal of a bill.”

“Democrats are fighting back against Republicans’ plans to gut Medicaid, dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and kick kids, veterans, seniors, and folks with disabilities off of their health insurance – all to fund tax breaks for billionaires,” Merkley said. 

The office for the GOP Senate Finance Committee did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on the developing situation and how the committee hopes to move forward.

OBAMACARE ABORTION FUNDING RESTRICTION NIXED FROM MEGABILL BY PARLIAMENTARIAN

In addition to the financial snag, the Senate parliamentarian also nixed the provision in the bill that would have prohibited federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, funding for transgender medical procedures, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. 

The parliamentarian is still reviewing a provision in the bill that would prohibit Medicaid dollars from going to any health facility that provides elective abortions, a measure that anti-abortion advocates have been striving to use to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers since the 1970s.