| A new report exposes David Valadao’s health care cleanup tour for what it is: too little too late, and entirely performative.
After voting for the largest Medicaid cuts in history, Valadao is stuck trying to justify a record already hurting Central Valley families – more than 68,000 robbed of their health care, around 18,000 facing premiums hikes by an average of $85 a month, and hospitals crippled.
Health advocates say the damage is personal: “There was really a sense of betrayal among…his voters, who thought…’this is not what I elected him to Congress to do.’”
Facing backlash, Valadao has turned to damage control – promoting the administration’s underfunded “Rural Health Transformation Project” as a fix.
FACT: The numbers don’t lie. California would receive just $230 million in 2026 from the RHTP – a fraction of the estimated $15 billion the state’s hospitals will lose in Medicaid funding this year alone.
Valadao even staged a health care roundtable event centered on the very bill he cast the deciding vote to pass – but failed to fool voters.
REALITY: A roundtable attendee said: “It felt performative. There was a great roundtable of people who would have loved to have a more robust conversation around true impacts and what solutions exist…And those solutions would be congressional fixes.” – Virginia Hedrick, CEO of the California Rural Indian Health Board
DCCC Spokesperson Anna Elsasser:
“David Valadao can spin and scramble all he wants, but the damage is done. His votes gutted health care for the Central Valley, and he will lose his seat in November because of it.” |
