NEW: After Voting to Gut Medicaid, Tom Kean Jr. is Trying to “Recast” Himself as a Medicaid Supporter

New reporting from Rolling Stone details how Kean Jr. last week “introduced a resolution purporting to recognize the 60th anniversary of Medicaid’s establishment”… despite having just voted to completely gut the health care program.

Rolling Stone reports that Kean Jr. and his GOP colleagues are “attempting to recast themselves as protectors of the health care program they sent to the wood chipper.” Unfortunately for Kean Jr., polling shows that New Jersey voters aren’t falling for his poorly attempted cover up.

Read more from Rolling Stone below:

• Last month, Republicans passed a reconciliation bill that is expected to kick millions of Americans off of Medicaid and other forms of health insurance. The legislation includes over $800 million in cuts to Medicaid spending over the next 10 years, the largest in the program’s history. Now, as Republicans gear up for next year’s midterm elections, vulnerable lawmakers who supported the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” are attempting to recast themselves as protectors of the health care program they sent to the wood chipper.
• Last week […] Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) […] introduced a resolution purporting to recognize the 60th anniversary of Medicaid’s establishment as well as “Congress’s commitment to preserve and strengthen the program for the nation’s most vulnerable populations.”
• In Kean Jr.’s district, at least 6,000 individuals are expected to lose Medicaid coverage as a result of the legislation, and over 450,000 individuals are at risk throughout the state.
• Kean Jr.’s voters are not happy with him, either. A poll released last month by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that even State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions included in the legislation — which Kean Jr., highlighted as an accomplishment in his statement to Rolling Stone, have not managed to eliminate the local backlash to Medicaid cuts. “Overall, 27 percent of likely voters in the state say that they approve of the budget bill,” the survey found.
• Kean Jr. was also among the slate of Republicans who — likely on the advice of House leadership and national Republicans — avoided holding in-person town halls to meet with their constituents.
• A joint resolution celebrating 60 years of Medicaid might play well for a few press releases, but it won’t provide health care coverage for the […] Americans who stand to lose access to the program.

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