John McGuire and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: His Place in a One-Vote House Majority, His Final Yes, and $28.6 Billion Less Medicaid Money for Virginia

John McGuire's One Big Beautiful Bill Act votes ran from a deciding yes on the February 2025 budget plan through a deciding yes on May 22 House passage to a yes on the final law, which carries a $28.6 billion ten-year reduction in Virginia's federal Medicaid funding, KFF estimates.

Across 18 roll calls between February 2025 and April 2026, McGuire voted for the budget resolutions, the rules that set up each debate, House passage, final passage and a 2026 resolution honoring the law, and he voted against the motion to recommit. SNAP shrinks by $187 billion through 2034 under it, and KFF projects 310,000 additional Virginians without insurance in 2034.

John McGuire's House Votes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, From Budget Plan to Final Law

• An $880 Billion Savings Target for Medicaid's Committee and a $230 Billion Target for SNAP's Cleared the House on McGuire's Deciding Vote, in February 2025. Three roll calls on February 25, 2025 carried McGuire's yes: ordering the previous question for H.Res. 161, which set up the budget debate (216 to 210); adopting that rule (217 to 211); and adopting the budget, H.Con.Res. 14 (217 to 215). That last margin was two votes, so McGuire flipping alone would have produced a 216-216 tie, and a tie fails. As the House adopted it, the plan directed Medicaid's committee, Energy and Commerce, to "reduce the deficit by not less than $880,000,000,000" over a decade; set a $230 billion minimum for Agriculture, home of SNAP; and let Ways and Means write up to $4.5 trillion in deficit-raising tax changes.
• The Final Budget Plan, With the Same Committee Targets, Cleared on McGuire's Deciding Votes in April 2025. Over April 9 and 10, 2025, McGuire voted three more times on the budget, first ordering the previous question on H.Res. 313, which carried 217 to 212, then voting for that rule (216 to 215), which put the Senate-amended budget resolution before the House, and finally voting to concur in the Senate amendment (216 to 214). The rule and the concurrence each turned on margins his vote alone could have reversed. Senate changes did not alter the instructions to House committees, so Energy and Commerce still had to find at least $880 billion. The Medicaid cuts themselves came later, through the law McGuire voted for on July 3, 2025: $911 billion across ten years, a Congressional Budget Office figure KFF reports.
• The House Bill Passed by a Single Vote, and McGuire's Was One of the 215 Yes Votes on May 22, 2025. There were six H.R. 1 roll calls on May 22, 2025, and McGuire voted yes on the first question of consideration, for H.Res. 436, which governed the bill's debate (217 to 211), yes on the second (216 to 211), yes on the previous question (213 to 211) and yes on adopting the rule (217 to 212). Next he voted against the motion to recommit; it went down 212 to 216. Then he voted for passage, which squeaked by 215 to 214 (one member voted present). If McGuire alone had voted no, both the previous question and passage would have failed. With that vote McGuire voted for a version under which Planned Parenthood's Medicaid billing would have been barred for items and services "furnished during the 10-year period" after enactment; the final law shortened the ban to one year.
• McGuire's Deciding Votes Opened Debate on the Final Version, and His Yes Helped Enact It, in July 2025. Of the five roll calls on July 2 and 3, 2025, the first two had McGuire saying yes to taking up the Senate-passed text under H.Res. 566 on the question of consideration (212 to 211) and on the previous question (214 to 212), margins thin enough that his switch alone would have reversed either one. He said yes to the Foxx amendment to that rule (220 to 212), yes to the rule (219 to 213), and yes to concurring in the Senate amendment, the vote that passed the bill for good (218 to 214). The bill was enacted on July 4, 2025 as Public Law 119-21. Ten million more Americans will be uninsured in 2034 as a result, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, as KFF reports, and SNAP loses about a fifth of its funding: "The megabill cuts SNAP by $187 billion or about 20 percent by 2034," in the words of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
• The Poorest Fifth Face a Small Tax Increase From a Law McGuire Voted to Celebrate as a Working-Family Tax Cut, in April 2026. On April 16, 2026, more than nine months after enactment, McGuire was among the 219 House members, against 207, who adopted H.Res. 1156; it brands the law the "Working Families Tax Cuts" and asserts it "will result in a 15 percent tax cut for Americans whose income is in the bottom 40 percent." An Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis of 2026 taxes reaches a different verdict, "For the poorest fifth of Americans, the average tax change from OBBBA is a small tax increase," while those in the top 1 percent pocket over $70,000 apiece.

What the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Costs Virginia, Topic by Topic, After John McGuire's Votes

• One in five residents of Virginia's 5th District, 169,200 people, count on the Medicaid the law cuts. KFF's 2025 district data show 169,200 people on Medicaid in Virginia's 5th District, 21% of the population, and 60,700 of them are expansion adults who face the work requirement starting by January 1, 2027. The votes behind the cuts are laid out on John McGuire's health care page.
• A $28.6 billion hole opens in Virginia's federal Medicaid funding over the next decade. In KFF's state split of the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, Virginia's share of the cut is $28.6 billion, 18% of the federal Medicaid dollars the state was counting on for hospital stays, nursing care and children's checkups. The health care page has McGuire's role in it.
• Virginia hospitals have $2.36 billion a year over the new caps, and rural Virginia loses $5.95 billion. Each year $2.36 billion in federal state-directed payments to Virginia hospitals exceeds the law's new ceilings, KFF calculates, and rural parts of the state lose $5.95 billion in federal Medicaid over ten years. McGuire's health care page carries more on hospital funding.
• The law leaves 310,000 more Virginians without coverage in 2034. KFF projects the law, on its own, raises Virginia's uninsured count by 310,000 in 2034, people who will pay for a doctor visit or a prescription out of pocket or go without; McGuire's homelessness and poverty page follows who pays.
• In June 2025, CBPP found food aid at risk each month for 22,000 Virginians in their late fifties and early sixties and 25,000 parents of teens. Those monthly at-risk counts come from a June 2025 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the Senate Agriculture Committee's proposal, which widened SNAP's work rules as the law later did, and Virginia must also absorb 75% of SNAP administration starting in fiscal year 2027. For the votes, see McGuire's food assistance page.
• Medicare's 1.69 million Virginia enrollees rely on a hospital fund that now runs out a quarter sooner. There were 1,687,718 Virginians on Medicare in 2024, and the hospital insurance fund they rely on now empties sooner: chiefly because of H.R. 1's tax provisions, its projected depletion moved a quarter earlier, to the second quarter of 2033, and the law ends Medicare for some lawfully present immigrants already enrolled. See McGuire's Medicare page.
• Medicaid, the program the law squeezes, is the main payer for 62% of Virginia's 28,554 nursing-home residents. Virginia's certified nursing homes held 28,554 residents in 2025, with Medicaid paying first for 62%; the law limits the provider taxes and payments behind that care and keeps the federal staffing standard off the books until 2034, as McGuire's elder care page lays out.
• 17,800 disabled Medicaid enrollees in the district, and 14,422 Virginians in line for home care. In Virginia's 5th District, 17,800 people with disabilities are on Medicaid, and statewide 14,422 people wait for a Medicaid home and community-based services slot, care that is optional for states and more exposed to cuts when budgets tighten. McGuire's disability rights page has more.
• Virginia's 42,016 Medicaid adults with opioid use disorder include expansion enrollees who will need a verified work-rule exemption from 2027. In 2021, opioid use disorder had been diagnosed in 42,016 Virginia Medicaid adults, 32,586 of whom were on medication. Those in the expansion group come under the law's work rule starting by January 1, 2027; it exempts people with a substance use disorder, and states verify that status under the CMS rule. McGuire's mental health and addiction page covers it.
• Low earnings keep 51,000 kids in the district from the full child tax credit. Columbia University's poverty researchers count 51,000 children in Virginia's 5th District, 36%, below the income the law requires for the whole credit. The child care and families page lists McGuire's votes on it.
• Social Security, paying 1.69 million Virginians, takes on $168.6 billion in new costs. As of December 2024, 1,685,819 Virginians received Social Security, 202,433 of them in the 5th District, and the law's extra cost to the program comes to $168.6 billion through 2034 in the chief actuary's estimate, with the retirement fund now projected to run dry in late 2032. McGuire's Social Security page has the votes.
• Student borrowers in Virginia leaving SAVE owe $2,722 more each year. Center for American Progress state figures put the average yearly jump at $2,722 for Virginians shifted from SAVE onto the law's new repayment plan. Details are on McGuire's student debt page.
• 35,000 Virginia veterans in SNAP households, and the law ended veterans' exemption from SNAP's three-month cutoff. About 35,000 of Virginia's 624,000 veterans, 6%, live in SNAP households, a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tally shows, and the final law ended the exemption veterans had from SNAP's three-month rule, so those who fit no other exemption must log work hours. The veterans page lays out McGuire's votes on it.
• By 2035 the clean-energy credit repeal could cost the average Virginia household roughly $250 more a year for energy. Energy Innovation's projection, published by CNBC, says the yearly increase for an average Virginia household could reach about $250 by 2035; McGuire's taxes and deficit page sets that against who got the tax cuts.

Frequently Asked Questions About John McGuire on One Big Beautiful Bill

Last updated: 2026-10-27

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