On April 10, 2025, Bill Huizenga cast a deciding vote for the final budget resolution; on May 22 he cast another for the House bill; and on July 3 he voted for the law that KFF describes as "the first time that Congress has eliminated Medicare coverage from previously eligible legally residing individuals", a provision the Congressional Budget Office expects to end coverage for about 100,000 people by 2034.
Michigan has 2,250,601 people on Medicare, 61.6% of them in Medicare Advantage plans. The same law moved the projected exhaustion of Medicare's hospital trust fund one quarter earlier than the prior year's forecast, to the second quarter of 2033, primarily by lowering the income tax on Social Security benefits that helps finance that fund.
Bill Huizenga's Votes on Medicare Eligibility, Premium Help and the Hospital Trust Fund
- Huizenga Voted for a Law That Cancels Medicare for Refugees, Asylum Recipients and Others Here Lawfully Who Paid Into It. The July 3, 2025 roll call on concurring in the Senate's H.R. 1 lists Bill Huizenga among the yes votes in a 218-214 result. Under Section 71201, immigrants here lawfully but without green cards, refugees and asylum recipients included, lose Medicare unless they belong to one of a handful of exempt groups. KFF notes the people losing coverage still owe Medicare payroll taxes on their wages, and the Congressional Budget Office projects "0.1 million Medicare beneficiaries losing their Medicare coverage as of 2034." If CMS's proposed timeline holds, enrollees flagged during the grace period are dropped on February 1, 2027. A separate provision exempts more rare-disease drugs from negotiation, which the budget office prices at $8.8 billion more for Medicare.
- Huizenga's One-Vote House Margin Carried a Freeze on Rules That Help Poor Seniors With Medicare Premiums, in May 2025. When the House took up H.R. 1 on May 22, 2025, Huizenga's aye was part of a 215-214 majority that one switched vote would have erased. Its text, carried into the final law, paused most of two rules: a rule easing enrollment in the Medicare Savings Programs, which pick up premiums and cost sharing for older and disabled people with low incomes, and a second, wider rule on Medicaid eligibility and enrollment. Holding off those rules translates, by an earlier budget office analysis made before the Senate's changes, into 1.3 million fewer people on Medicare who also have Medicaid in 2034, a figure KFF expects could be smaller under the enacted text, while someone who never gets the help could be left "paying $185 per month in Medicare premiums, or about 20% of income," by KFF's arithmetic.
- Huizenga Gave the April Budget Resolution Its Two-Vote Edge, Setting Up Tax Cuts That Shorten the Life of Medicare's Hospital Fund. Huizenga's yes helped the House concur in the Senate's H.Con.Res. 14, 216 to 214 on April 10, 2025, so his switch alone would have produced a failing tie. The resolution gave Ways and Means room for tax legislation that could "increase the deficit by not more than $4,500,000,000,000". Passed July 3, 2025 with Huizenga's yes, the final law used that room for lower income taxes on Social Security checks, and those taxes are one source of Medicare hospital funding. The 2026 trustees report moved the hospital fund's projected depletion date up by a quarter, to the second quarter of 2033, and KFF reports the shift comes primarily from that revenue now being "lower than previously projected due to changes in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill"; at depletion, a forced reduction kicks in, by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's projection "leading to an 11% cut in hospital payments, growing to a 16% cut by 2040".
What Bill Huizenga's Medicare Votes Mean for Michigan Seniors and Retirees
- Michigan's 2.25 million Medicare enrollees rely on a hospital fund the law empties sooner. Of the 2,250,601 Michiganders on Medicare in 2024, traditional Medicare covered 864,969, and private Medicare Advantage plans the remaining 61.6%, KFF's tally shows. Their hospital coverage is financed through the Part A trust fund whose projected depletion date the law advanced by one quarter, now the second quarter of 2033, and an empty fund means an automatic payment cut to the hospitals that treat them.
- Michigan's 4th District has 174,328 Social Security recipients, and the law's lower tax on benefits shrinks Medicare's hospital fund. In December 2024, 174,328 people in Michigan's 4th District drew Social Security, 132,161 of them retired workers, the Social Security Administration reports. The law's lower income tax on those benefits is the change that shrinks the hospital fund's revenue, so the retirees it reaches are also the patients who depend on that fund.
- 13,100 older adults in Huizenga's district are on Medicaid, the program behind Medicare premium help. Medicaid's 2025 rolls in Michigan's 4th District included 13,100 people age 65 and up, according to KFF. Medicaid runs the Medicare Savings Programs that pay premiums for low-income older adults, and the law put on hold the Medicare Savings Program enrollment rule that would have made enrolling in them easier.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bill Huizenga on Medicare
What is Bill Huizenga's record on Medicare under Trump?
In July 2025 Bill Huizenga voted yes on the final One Big Beautiful Bill Act, after deciding votes for its April budget resolution and its May House passage. Under it, some lawfully present immigrants lose Medicare, a rule easing Medicare Savings Program sign-ups and a wider Medicaid enrollment rule are both frozen, and a broader rare-disease exemption adds $8.8 billion to Medicare drug spending. Its tax changes also bring the hospital trust fund's projected depletion forward one quarter, into the second quarter of 2033, for the 2.25 million Michiganders on Medicare.
When do immigrants in Michigan lose Medicare because of Bill Huizenga's vote?
For immigrants identified during the grace period of the law Bill Huizenga voted for on July 3, 2025, the Social Security Administration was set to mail preliminary notices from August to November 2026 and formal termination notices in late December 2026, with coverage ending on February 1, 2027 per the timeline CMS has proposed, the Center for Medicare Advocacy says. Anyone identified later is cut off on the final day of the month following the notice, and by 2034 0.1 million beneficiaries nationwide will have lost Medicare under the provision, in the budget office's projection.
When does Medicare's hospital fund run short after Bill Huizenga's votes?
In the second quarter of 2033, which is one quarter before the date in the previous forecast, according to the trustees report KFF summarizes, and the shift comes primarily from the tax law Bill Huizenga helped pass, which reduces the Social Security tax revenue credited to the fund. Depletion would trigger an 11% cut in hospital payments, deepening to 16% by 2040, CRFB projects, for the hospitals that serve Michigan's 2.25 million Medicare enrollees.
Did Bill Huizenga vote to raise what Medicare pays for some drugs?
Yes: in section 71203, the law Bill Huizenga voted for in July 2025 lets more orphan drugs, those approved for rare diseases, escape Medicare price talks, a change the Congressional Budget Office scores at an additional $8.8 billion. KFF expects the change to hold back the cancer drugs Keytruda and Opdivo from negotiation "by at least one year"; in 2023, KFF found, Keytruda alone accounted for $5.6 billion in spending by Medicare and its enrollees.
Last updated: 2026-10-27