Trump’s budget law will hurt thousands in Michigan—and these Republicans voted for it

From slashing health care and food assistance to cutting clean energy jobs, Trump’s budget will devastate Michigan—and seven GOP lawmakers helped make it law.

MICHIGAN—President Donald Trump has signed a new budget into law—and it’s going to hurt and potentially kill Michiganders. 

Backed by all seven Michigan Republicans in the US House—Tom Barrett, Jack Bergman, Bill Huizenga, John James, John Moolenaar, Lisa McClain and Tim Walberg—and signed into law on July 4, Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” has been hailed by the GOP as an economic success story.

In reality, it sticks working Michiganders with the bill—namely by gutting health care, slashing food assistance benefits, shuttering rural hospitals, raising costs, and killing jobs.

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan), who voted against the bill, isn’t holding back about how dangerous it is. 

“Why would anyone vote for this big bad bill?” Dingell said in a statement after the bill passed in the US House. “People will die, children will go hungry, and working Americans will struggle even more to make ends meet—all so Republicans can give another tax break to billionaires.”

US Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) also blasted the bill after it passed last week: “No matter which way you slice it, the president just rammed through a bill that will make Michiganders pay in every part of their lives. All so the wealthiest among us can get a tax break.”

They’re not wrong. Here are seven of the most dangerous ways the new law is set to hurt—and literally kill—thousands of Michiganders as its provisions take effect over the next decade:

1. Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders will lose their health care

Medicaid covers health care for one in four Michiganders—including two in five children and most nursing home residents. Trump’s new law slices more than $800 billion in federal funding from the program and adds in new rules that are so strict that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expecting at least 200,000 residents to be dumped from their coverage over the next decade.

That includes those expected to comply with the  new, 80-hour-a-month work requirements for Medicaid recipients—including people up to age 65 and parents of children age 14 and older.

Republicans say they want to “rightsize” the programs for the population it was initially designed to serve—primarily pregnant women, the disabled, and children—and root out what they describe as waste, fraud, and abuse. But Democrats say the cuts simply go too far, too fast.

Whitmer has called it “a reckless bill that threatens the health, security, and economic stability of millions of Michiganders—including countless working families who rely on [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits to put food on the table.”

“Nearly 15,000 Michiganders sent stories to me about how these cuts will devastate their lives,” Whitmer said last week. “Republicans ignored their constituents, leaving them with higher costs and without the health care they’ll need. … It’s time to stop playing politics with people’s lives.”

All told, an estimated 17 million people could be kicked off their health care nationwide.

Meanwhile, other provisions of the budget plan are set to lead to soaring premiums, deductibles, and co-pays for millions of other patients who aren’t on Medicaid. That’s because the bill formally ends an array of federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As a result, Michiganders who get their health care through the federal marketplace are set to see their premiums increase by about $730 a year, according to estimates released by state officials. 

2. Rural hospitals will shut their doors 

Medicaid pays for about 22% patient care in Michigan. But in small towns, it makes up a much larger slice of the pie—covering about 40% of patient care in Michigan’s rural hospitals.

Take that money away, and facilities from Ironwood to Bad Axe will struggle to retain business as usual. Industry analysts say the law will force up to 300 hospitals nationwide to close or slash services, as well as put up to 30,000 Michigan health care jobs on the chopping block. 

As a result of the Medicaid funding cuts, one in four nursing homes is also expected to close.

Many more Michiganders—not just those who rely on Medicaid—are also set to face longer drives and longer waits to access care as the health care system, as a whole, shrinks.

Republican lawmakers carved out a $50 billion fund to support rural hospitals, but industry experts told Bridge Michigan that represents less than half of their expected total losses. 

“Life is already too expensive for Michigan families, and this bill is going to make it worse,” Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Michigan) said in a statement. “Working families will lose their health care, children will go hungry, and our seniors will lose access to long-term care, all to pay for massive tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. Everybody will see daily costs go up like health care, utility bills, and food to help Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos make more money.”

3. Lost coverage will cost thousands of lives 

Researchers say Medicaid cuts of this scale will translate into more than 50,000 preventable deaths every year. With delayed cancer diagnoses, untreated diabetes, skipped blood-pressure medication, the body count won’t be abstract. They say it will be neighbors, classmates, and relatives: People will die, in part, because seven Michigan Republicans voted for this bill.

4. Food assistance is getting the axe 

Trump’s budget bill makes the largest-ever cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—namely by slashing annual federal spending by $285 billion over the next decade and forcing individual states to pick up the bill to keep benefits afloat. 

In Michigan, those extra costs could tally as high as $900 million a year, according to state estimates—and it’s something that state lawmakers already said they cannot afford to cover.

But even if the state fills the gap, new work requirements in the budget bill would still force about 3 million people to lose their SNAP benefits nationwide, including 270,000 people in Michigan.

5. Michigan’s clean energy future is in jeopardy

Michigan’s clean energy boom is on the chopping block. That’s because Trump’s new budget law formally scraps electric vehicle tax credits, as well as an array of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax incentives, and creates new subsidies for dirtier forms of energy—like coal.

Clean energy tax credits have helped turn Michigan into a national leader in clean energy manufacturing and electric vehicle production—adding more than 25,000 new jobs and nearly $40 billion in private investment statewide since the legislation was signed into law in 2022.

But instead of protecting the tools that led to that economic growth, Trump’s budget effectively dismantles them altogether, blocking federal investments to support dozens of additional clean energy projects that have been announced across the state.

Officials at Climate Power say dozens of clean energy projects across the state are now at risk of being canceled—representing nearly $40 billion in investment and over 25,000 jobs in electric vehicle batteries, solar components, hydrogen production, and clean utility infrastructure.

And because renewable energy is actually cheaper to produce than energy from fossil fuels, clean energy groups like the Michigan League of Conservation Voters also estimate that electric bills for the average Michigan family will climb by at least $230 a year over the next decade.

“This bill puts politics over making people’s lives better and aims to take a sledgehammer to tremendous progress that’s been made to make our energy grid cleaner, more reliable and more affordable,” said Bentley Johnson, a director at the League. “This is all so the fossil fuel CEOs can pad their record-breaking profits while our communities are left with dirtier air and water.”

6. College is about to get more expensive for Michigan families

About 1.4 million Michiganders carry federal student loans, each owing an average of $37,000. Many are enrolled in a Biden-era repayment plan called Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE), which caps monthly payments based on income and forgives loans after several years.

Trump’s new law eliminates that program altogether. 

Instead, borrowers taking out loans after July 2026 will have just two repayment options: A standard monthly plan, or a so-called “Repayment Assistance Plan” with a minimum $50 monthly payment that’s calculated using gross—not discretionary—income. Critics warn that could leave borrowers choosing between groceries and student debt, Bridge Michigan reports.

​​The new law also caps how much students can borrow from the federal government to attend grad school: $100,000 for most graduate students, and $200,000 for law and med students.

With a four-year medical degree now costing nearly $300,000, education experts say these limits will only price out lower-income students and make the doctor shortage worse.

The new budget law also caps federal Parent PLUS loans at $65,000 per student—an option disproportionately used by Black and Latino families—and eliminates Grad PLUS loans entirely, which could shut the door on graduate school for thousands of Michigan students.

Some provisions of the law also tie federal funding to the future earnings of graduates, which could ultimately force colleges to drop entire programs that serve lower-income students.

Together, the changes are expected to reduce access to higher education, hurt Michigan universities financially, and shift even more students into private loans with higher interest rates. 

7. Billionaires are cashing in while the rest of us foot the bill 

With all the cuts to federal spending on health care and food assistance benefits, the wealthiest Americans—the top 10% of earners—are set to see tax cuts that increase their annual household income by about $12,000 a year from 2026 to 2034, with the wealthiest individuals—those making more than $4.3 million annually—gaining nearly $400,000 a year.

And while middle class workers are set to see modest tax benefits under Trump’s new tax brackets, Michiganders making less than $51,000 a year are reportedly poised to lose about $700 in annual after-tax income beginning in 2026. All told, about 60% of the bill’s new tax savings are lined up to go to the top 20% of households, with more than one-third of the savings going out to households making $460,000 or more, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Republicans have tried to make up for the damage by eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, but the tax cuts for the rich are permanent while the freedom from taxes on tips expires in 2028, reports The Hill. And many wait staff don’t earn enough to owe federal taxes in the first place.

Under Trump’s new tax structure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the legislation would add a total of more than $3 trillion to the national debt over the decade.

US Rep. Haley Stevens, who voted against the bill, put it plainly in a recent post on X: “This bill will benefit the millionaires and billionaires like Donald Trump at the expense of Michiganders.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

READ MORE: Trump’s budget puts the health of everyone in Michigan at risk

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