Until this law, Congress had never taken Medicare away from people legally entitled to it, and KFF says so plainly: "This is the first time that Congress has eliminated Medicare coverage". Brad Finstad's July 3, 2025 vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made refugees, asylees and other lawfully present immigrants the first people set to lose it, and the Congressional Budget Office expects 0.1 million people off the rolls by 2034.
Poorer seniors come next. When the House bill squeaked through 215 to 214 on May 22, 2025, Finstad's yes was indispensable, and that bill, like the final law, put most of two enrollment rules for Medicare premium assistance on hold. Then came the April 2025 budget vote, which he decided and which made room for tax cuts that pull the hospital fund's projected exhaustion one quarter earlier, to the second quarter of 2033, the fund behind hospital stays for Minnesota's 1,150,958 people on Medicare.
Brad Finstad's Votes on Medicare Coverage, Premium Help and the Hospital Trust Fund
- Medicare Enrollees Who Came as Refugees or Won Asylum Are Set to Lose Medicare Under the July 2025 Law Finstad Voted For. On July 3, 2025, the last House vote on H.R. 1 drew 218 yes votes to 214 no votes, and Brad Finstad's was one of the yeses. Its section 71201 narrows who can get Medicare, leaving out refugees, asylees and other immigrants here lawfully who lack a green card. On the timeline CMS proposed, which the Center for Medicare Advocacy lays out, people flagged during the grace period the law allows would see their Medicare end on February 1, 2027. The same bill loosens Medicare drug-price negotiation for orphan drugs, a carve-out the Congressional Budget Office prices at $8.8 billion in extra Medicare spending.
- Seniors Scraping By on Low Incomes Lose an Easier Path to Premium Help After Finstad's Must-Have House Vote of May 2025. One vote separated the two sides when the House passed H.R. 1 on May 22, 2025, 215 to 214 with one present, and Finstad supplied one of the 215. A moratorium in that bill, kept in the final law, stops most of two rules meant to ease sign-up for the programs that cover Medicare premiums for older people with little income. Pausing the rules, the Congressional Budget Office had projected in scoring the House version, would mean 1.3 million fewer people on Medicare also holding Medicaid in 2034, and KFF figures a senior pushed out of the help could end up "paying $185 per month in Medicare premiums, or about 20% of income."
- Medicare Hospital Patients Face a Trust Fund Exhausted a Quarter Sooner Under Tax Cuts the April 2025 Budget Plan Finstad Voted For Made Room For. Finstad's vote on April 10, 2025 was one the final budget resolution, H.Con.Res. 14, needed: it carried 216 to 214, so his defection alone would have created the tie that sinks a resolution. Under it, the tax-writing Ways and Means panel could draft changes that "increase the deficit by not more than $4,500,000,000,000". Under one of those cuts, retirees owe less income tax on Social Security checks, and part of that tax revenue had gone to Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund. Depletion of that fund is now forecast for the second quarter of 2033, three months ahead of the earlier projection, with KFF tying the shift primarily to Social Security tax income running "lower than previously projected due to changes in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill."
Which Minnesotans on Medicare Pay for the Law Brad Finstad Voted For
- Minnesota's 1,150,958 Medicare enrollees count on a hospital fund the law drains a quarter sooner. Of Minnesota's 1,150,958 people on Medicare in 2024, 467,163 used traditional Medicare, and hospital stays for all of them draw on the trust fund that the law's tax changes push to exhaustion one quarter earlier, in the second quarter of 2033, when payments to hospitals would no longer be fully covered.
- Lawfully present immigrant adults in Minnesota were set to lose Medical Assistance in October 2026, with Medicare next under CMS's proposed timeline. Minnesota's change was set for October 1, 2026, when upward of 5,000 immigrants in the state were to lose federally funded Medical Assistance under the law, MPR News reported the day before, and lawfully present immigrants on Medicare who are identified during the grace period would lose that coverage too, on February 1, 2027, on the schedule CMS has proposed, per the Center for Medicare Advocacy's fact sheet.
Frequently Asked Questions About Brad Finstad on Medicare
What is Brad Finstad's record on Medicare under Trump?
Brad Finstad voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and under it lawfully present immigrants, refugees and asylees among them, lose Medicare, a first for Congress in KFF's account. His May 2025 House vote was needed for the 215-to-214 passage of a bill that freezes rules easing premium help for low-income seniors, and his deciding April 2025 budget vote opened room for tax cuts that pull the Medicare hospital fund's projected depletion one quarter earlier, still in 2033.
Who in southern Minnesota's 1st District loses help with Medicare premiums because of Brad Finstad's vote?
Low-income Medicare enrollees in Minnesota's 1st District who are not yet signed up for the programs that pay Medicare premiums and cost sharing are the ones Brad Finstad's vote reaches: the freeze he voted for in May 2025, which the final law kept, holds off rules meant to make that sign-up easier. The Congressional Budget Office's estimate for the House-passed bill was that 1.3 million fewer people on Medicare would also hold Medicaid in 2034.
Does the law Brad Finstad voted for raise Medicare's drug costs?
Yes. Brad Finstad voted for a law whose orphan-drug provision shields more rare-disease drugs from Medicare price talks, and KFF expects it to delay negotiation over the cancer drugs Keytruda and Opdivo "by at least one year," drugs on which "Medicare and beneficiaries spent $5.6 billion on Keytruda and $2.0 billion on Opdivo" in 2023.
Last updated: 2026-10-27