News · Press Release

“Absolutely Devastating”: Valadao’s Fatal Flip-Flop on Medicaid Will Cost Him His Seat

After spending months making empty promises to Californians and pretending to take a stand to protect their health care, David Valadao sealed his political fate by voting last week to rip health care away from over 65,000 people in his district.

The Los Angeles Times made it clear: “Already a ripe target for Democrats in the next election, Central Valley Rep. David Valadao put his political future in deeper peril this week by voting in favor of legislation that slashes the Medicaid coverage essential to roughly two-thirds of his constituents.”

Read for yourself…

Los Angeles Times: Valadao votes for a Trump megabill expected to disrupt healthcare for many in the Central Valley

  • More than a half-million residents in Valadao’s district are covered by…Medi-Cal — the most of any district in the state…
  • Democrats vowed to use Valadao’s vote to oust him from office in the 2026 election. His district…is among the most competitive in the nation.
  • Valadao has repeatedly vowed to oppose legislation that would cut healthcare for his constituents, [saying]… “I’ve been clear from the start that I will not support a final reconciliation bill that makes harmful cuts to Medicaid, puts critical funding at risk, or threatens the stability of healthcare providers across” his district.
  • “David Valadao just sealed his fate by voting for a bill that will rip health care away from tens of thousands in his district, where more than two-thirds of his constituents rely on the very program he’s gutting,” said Anna Elsasser, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee…“He lied to their faces, and then tried to sweep it under the rug. We all knew he’d fold when it mattered most. It’s spineless, it’s dishonest, and next November, it will cost him his seat.”
  • Gilbert Garcia, 68, of Bakersfield warned that the coming cuts “will be absolutely devastating.”
  • He also is worried that the sole trauma center in the region, which saved his 10-year-old son’s life more than three decades ago, will probably be shuttered because of the legislation.
  • In critical situations, people “have minutes to reach a trauma center that has the equipment to be able to stabilize them and keep them alive,” Garcia said. “There’s no time to get to L.A. There’s no time to get to Fresno. People will be dead on arrival.”
  • A Congressional Budget Office analysis released Sunday estimated that the Senate version of the proposal would increase the national deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion…and would result in 11.8 million Americans losing health insurance in less than a decade.
  • Cal State Fresno political science professor Tom Holyoke noted that the only time Valadao lost reelection to Congress was in 2018, the middle of Trump’s first term…His vote “certainly gives the Democrats something to run on…especially since Valadao said he was going to vote against the bill and then voted for it.”

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