Tom Barrett and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: May 2025's Single-Vote House Passage Needed Him, and Michigan Medicaid Gives Up $31.6 Billion

For Michigan's Medicaid patients, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act means $31.6 billion less federal money across a decade, KFF estimates, and Tom Barrett voted for it on House passage and on final passage: on May 22, 2025, his vote was one the House version could not lose in its 215-to-214 passage, and on July 3, 2025, he was a yes on final passage.

Barrett's yes also settled both 2025 budget resolutions and two July 2 procedural votes that brought up the final version, and in April 2026 he voted for a resolution extolling the law. KFF projects 300,000 more uninsured Michiganders in 2034, and more than 167,000 people in Michigan have come off SNAP since the summer of 2025.

Tom Barrett's House Votes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, From Budget Plan to Final Passage

• Michigan's Medicaid and SNAP Recipients Were Put in Line for Cuts by a February 2025 Budget Plan, With $880 Billion and $230 Billion Savings Targets, That Needed Barrett's Vote. Barrett said yes three times on February 25, 2025 as the House budget resolution advanced: the previous question on H.Res. 161, its rule (216 to 210); the rule itself (217 to 211); and H.Con.Res. 14 (217 to 215). On the last, one flipped vote from him would have produced a tie, and ties lose. What it ordered: Energy and Commerce, Medicaid's committee, to find no less than $880 billion; Agriculture, SNAP's committee, no less than $230 billion; and Ways and Means free to push deficits up by as much as $4.5 trillion with tax changes.
• Barrett Cast Deciding Votes on the Rule and the Final Budget Resolution That Set Up Michigan's Medicaid Cut, in April 2025. Barrett voted yes on April 9, 2025 on the previous question for H.Res. 313 (217 to 212) and on that rule, which called up the Senate-amended budget resolution (216 to 215); a day later he voted yes on concurring in the Senate text (216 to 214). The rule and the resolution each hinged on him: with his vote reversed, the rule loses and the resolution ties and fails. The Senate text carried the same committee orders. Under the enacted law, which got Barrett's yes on July 3, Washington's Medicaid outlays shrink by $911 billion in the decade ahead, KFF says, using the Congressional Budget Office's score.
• The House Passed H.R. 1 by One Vote in May 2025, and Barrett's Was Among the 215. Six Barrett votes on May 22, 2025 moved H.R. 1. He was a yes on each question of consideration for H.Res. 436, the rule (carried by 217 to 211, then by 216 to 211); a yes on its previous question (213 to 211); and a yes on adopting it (217 to 212). He was a no on the motion to recommit, which failed 212 to 216. Then came passage: 215 ayes, 214 noes, one present, a count in which his yes, like his previous-question vote, was indispensable. After the Senate's rewrite, the law Barrett voted for in July leaves 7.5 million more people uninsured in 2034 through its Medicaid provisions alone, as KFF relays the Congressional Budget Office's projection, and it stopped Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for a "1-year period".
• Barrett Supplied Votes the House Needed to Take Up the Senate's Version, Then Voted for Final Passage in July 2025. Two procedural tallies on July 2, 2025 turned on Barrett: H.Res. 566's question of consideration, carried 212 to 211, and the vote ordering its previous question, carried 214 to 212. Next, the Foxx amendment to that rule got his yes, carrying 220 to 212, and on July 3 his vote went to the rule as amended, which passed 219 to 213, and to the concurrence motion that was final passage (218 to 214). The president signed it as Public Law 119-21 on July 4, 2025. The Congressional Budget Office projects 10 million more people without coverage in 2034 as a result, KFF reports, while the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' bottom line reads: "The megabill cuts SNAP by $187 billion or about 20 percent by 2034."
• Barrett Voted in April 2026 for a Resolution Hailing the Law as a Tax Cut for Working Families, Though the Poorest Fifth Pays More. On April 16, 2026, Barrett was in the 219-to-207 majority for H.Res. 1156, which labels the law the "Working Families Tax Cuts" and says it "will result in a 15 percent tax cut for Americans whose income is in the bottom 40 percent." The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that "For the poorest fifth of Americans, the average tax change from OBBBA is a small tax increase" in 2026, while the top 1 percent gain upward of $70,000 apiece on average.

What the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Tom Barrett Voted For Costs Michigan, Issue by Issue

• Michigan's Medicaid patients lose $31.6 billion in federal funding. Split state by state, the Congressional Budget Office's Medicaid estimate leaves Michigan $31.6 billion short over ten years, 17% of the federal share it expected, KFF calculates; in the 7th District alone, 134,000 people were on Medicaid in 2025. Tom Barrett's votes on it are on his health care page.
• Up to 200,000 Healthy Michigan enrollees could lose coverage to the work rule. The Whitmer administration expects as many as 200,000 of the roughly 678,000 people on the Healthy Michigan Plan to be dropped under the law's new requirements, Bridge Michigan reported, including eligible people tripped up by paperwork. Who must comply and when is covered on Barrett's health care page.
• Michigan hospital care draws $2.62 billion a year above the law's payment limits, and rural Michigan loses $5.63 billion. Under the law's limits on state-directed payments, roughly $2.62 billion a year of federal money for Michigan hospital care is over the line, KFF finds, and rural Michigan gives up $5.63 billion in federal Medicaid funds over ten years. The hospital votes are on Barrett's health care page.
• More than 167,000 Michiganders have left SNAP, and the state owes a new share of its costs. Michigan's SNAP rolls fell by over 167,000 people, more than 53,000 of them children, from the summer of 2025 through August 2026, BridgeDetroit reported in October 2026, and at the state's error rate the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates Michigan could be billed about $300 million for benefits in fiscal year 2028. His votes on it are laid out on Barrett's food assistance page.
• 300,000 more Michiganders will be uninsured in 2034 while the top tenth gains $13,600 a year. KFF projects the law alone leaves 300,000 more Michiganders uninsured in 2034, and the Congressional Budget Office finds the top tenth of households nationally comes out about $13,600 a year ahead. The tax votes are on Barrett's taxes and deficit page.
• Refugees and asylees among Michigan's 2.25 million Medicare enrollees are losing coverage. Michigan had 2,250,601 people on Medicare in 2024, and the law ends coverage for lawfully present immigrants without green cards, with those already identified losing it, under CMS's proposed timeline, on February 1, 2027. Barrett's Medicare page covers the premium-help freeze too.
• Medicaid pays first for two-thirds of Michigan's nursing-home residents, and the law cuts it. Of the 35,755 people in Michigan's certified nursing facilities, 66% rely on Medicaid as primary payer, and the law also blocks the federal staffing standard until September 30, 2034. More is on Barrett's elder care page.
• 2,994 Michiganders were already waiting for Medicaid home care. KFF reports 2,994 Michiganders on Medicaid home and community-based waiver waiting lists in 2026, an optional benefit that is among the most exposed when federal Medicaid dollars fall. Barrett's disability rights page has the work-rule exemptions.
• Michigan expansion adults living with mental illness, 213,395 of them, must log work unless an exemption covers them. Among adults in Michigan's Medicaid expansion in 2021, KFF found 213,395 living with a mental illness and 89,192 with an addiction, the population the work requirement covers. The exemption rules are spelled out on Barrett's mental health and addiction page.
• 28,000 children in Barrett's district get less than the whole child tax credit. By the count of Columbia University's poverty center, 20% of children in Michigan's 7th District, 28,000, and 581,000 statewide, are growing up in households paid too little to collect the whole credit. Those figures and the child care credit are on Barrett's child care and families page.
• Michigan's Social Security beneficiaries, 2.34 million strong, mostly draw on a retirement fund now projected to run short in 2032. Social Security paid 2,339,826 Michiganders in December 2024, 171,835 of them in the 7th District, and the chief actuary scores the law as raising the program's costs $168.6 billion; when the retirement fund runs dry, CRFB projects a 24% cut shrinking the average Michigan retirement check by $523 a month. See Barrett's Social Security page.
• Leaving SAVE costs Michigan student-loan borrowers $1,884 a year on average. Michigan borrowers moved from SAVE onto the law's new Repayment Assistance Plan owe, on average, $1,884 more annually by CAP's estimate. Grad PLUS and the rest are on Barrett's student debt page.
• Michigan veterans in SNAP households number 39,000, and those the time limit reaches lost their exemption. CBPP counts 39,000 Michigan veterans living in SNAP households, and a working-age veteran raising no child younger than 14, with nothing else exempting him or her, no longer gets a pass on SNAP's three-month limit. Barrett's veterans page also covers the Medicaid work rule.
• Typical Michigan households could face energy bills $320 a year higher by 2035. Energy Innovation projected, in figures CNBC published, that the law's energy provisions, which end clean-energy and home-efficiency credits, could push a typical Michigan household's yearly energy bill up by about $320 by 2035.
• Planned Parenthood of Michigan closed its Lansing health center after the Medicaid cutoff. Planned Parenthood of Michigan announced on July 30, 2026 that its Lansing, Livonia and Warren health centers would close for good, pointing to a $4.2 million fall in what it was paid for patient care and in federal family planning dollars after the law's year-long Medicaid ban, the Michigan Advance reported.

Frequently Asked Questions About Tom Barrett on One Big Beautiful Bill

Last updated: 2026-10-27

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