| Juan Ciscomani’s health care cuts are becoming a liability for his increasingly doomed re-election campaign, the Tucson Sentinel reports.
Multiple experts told the Sentinel that by gutting health care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, Ciscomani put Arizona’s entire health care system at risk. At least 10 hospitals in and around Ciscomani’s district could close, while thousands of Southern Arizonans could lose their insurance – driving up costs for everyone.
REMINDER: Ciscomani repeatedly promised that he “cannot and will not” cut Medicaid. He even blasted the cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for “threaten[ing] access to coverage” and “jeopardiz[ing] the stability of our hospitals and providers” – before ultimately voting for the bill, without any changes, a few days later.
As multiple outlets have reported, Ciscomani relies heavily on campaign cash from his D.C. party bosses. In his own team’s words, Ciscomani is “not accustomed” to bucking GOP “leadership.”
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Juan Ciscomani sold out Arizonans’ health care to please his D.C. party bosses. Voters will hold him accountable this November.”
READ THE REPORTING FOR YOURSELF.
Tucson Sentinel: Ciscomani & Mendoza spar over healthcare policies in Southern Az congressional race
- [Mendoza] says Ciscomani cast the deciding vote for a budget plan that creates bureaucratic red tape designed to push hundreds of thousands of low-income Arizonans off the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (aka AHCCCS, the state’s version of Medicaid).
- That, in turn, will mean fewer dollars for hospitals and clinics, particularly those in rural areas throughout Congressional District 6, at a time when they are already operating on slim margins.
- “No matter what your insurance is, you’re going to be affected by this bill,” Strange warned. “We’ll go back to where we were in 2006 when it was 18-hour waits.”
- The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association predicted last year that the legislation would cost hospitals $6 billion over the next seven years and more than half of the state’s hospitals could end up operating in the red.
- Kuntz said the legislation “will reshape healthcare for everyone in this country, not just those on AHCCCS/Medicaid. You cannot make a trillion dollars of cuts and push 12 million people to be newly uninsured without having profound consequences for the entire healthcare system.”
- A study by Third Way estimated that 10 hospitals in and around Congressional District 6 could close as a result of the budget plan.
- Derksen, who studies rural health care, called the cuts “a huge concern. I don’t care if you practice in a rural area or urban area, hospital or clinic, no one can absorb a loss of 10 to 15 percent of those who have a payment source from their thing and still operate the types of services we need, like maternal healthcare.”
- Ciscomani himself warned that the legislation would be damaging to the health care sector in letters opposing healthcare cuts before he voted for the final version of the bill.
- He co-signed an April 17 letter to House leadership with 12 other Republican lawmakers, who wrote: “Cuts to Medicaid also threaten the viability of hospitals, nursing homes, and safety-net providers nationwide. Many hospitals — particularly in rural and underserved areas — rely heavily on Medicaid funding, with some receiving over half their revenue from the program alone. Providers in these areas are especially at risk of closure, with many unable to recover. When hospitals close, it affects all constituents, regardless of healthcare coverage.”
- In a letter he co-signed with 15 other House Republicans in June 2025, he and his colleagues said the legislation “undermines the balanced approach taken to craft the Medicaid provisions in H.R. 1—particularly regarding provider taxes and state directed payments.”
- While they said they “cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and providers,” Ciscomani voted in favor of the Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill days later, on July 3, 2025.
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