UNBIASED - UNBIASED Politics (7/7/25): What's in the Big Beautiful Bill? Answering All of Your Questions! PLUS Alligator Alcatraz, Musk's New Political Party, the New Epstein Report and More.

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S ⁠FREE NEWSLETTER⁠. Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: What We Know About the Texas Floods (0:48) What We Know About Alligator Alcatraz (10:21) What We Know About Musk's New "America Party" (16:54) Big Beautiful Bill Q&A: Answering Your Questions About the New Law (19:45) Quick Hitters: Trump's Tariff Letters, FBI/DOJ New Epstein Report (48:49) Critical Thinking Segment (50:12) SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S FREE NEWSLETTER. Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get unlimited grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Meal prep delivered. Snacks delivered. Fresh fruit delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at pcexpress.ca. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, July 7th. Let's talk about some news. Just as a heads up, most of this episode will be about the big, beautiful bill. We'll touch on a few other stories,

but for the most part, it'll pretty much be a big, beautiful bill Q&A. And because there is so much to talk about in regard to the new law, I don't really wanna rush through it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to break it up between two episodes. So in today's episode, I'll focus on answering

the questions that you all submitted related to Medicare, Medicaid and student loans. And then on Thursday, I'll finish the rest of the questions which deal with topics like taxes, the debt ceiling increase and then a few miscellaneous things. For now, let's get into today's episode starting with the devastating news out of Texas. As of today, the death toll from the Texas flooding has reached 90 and officials are still searching for some of the girls missing from Camp Mystic.

More than 850 people have been rescued since that flooding began. So what happened here was a massive and incredibly destructive flash flood. Flash floods happen when a ton of rain pours down in a very short amount of time and it happens so quickly that the ground does not have the time to absorb it. Central Texas is actually called Flash Flood Alley because it is so susceptible to flooding. But this flood was like nothing the area has ever seen. Basically, weather forecasters knew rain was coming. They knew flooding was possible, but they just really underestimated the amount of rain that would inevitably fall. So on July 2nd, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, TDEM, issued state emergency response resources and reported increased threats of flooding in parts of West and Central Texas. As a result of this emergency response activation, water rescue

teams and equipment were moved to areas in the region where high levels of rainfall were predicted. At 441 pm on the 2nd, an ex post by the National Weather Service in Austin, San Antonio said scattered moderate to heavy showers were continuing to develop and were expanding. In the morning on July 3rd, the National Weather Service in Austin, San Antonio Conducted a forecast briefing for emergency management flagging flash flood risks Afterwards the National Weather Service issued a moderate flood watch and the Texas Division of Emergency Management Posted to exit about 10 a.m. That morning in both English and Spanish at about 10 a.m. that morning in both English and Spanish instructions for residents on, you know, how they could stay safe in the event of a flood. The post advised residents in West and Central

Texas to remain weather aware heading into the holiday weekend. According to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the Texas Division of Emergency Management personally contacted mayors in the area and notified all of them of potential flooding. However, at that point it was not clear which areas the storm would hit. So later Patrick added that in a he said in a press conference that on that day on July 3rd that message was sent to county mayors but that it was up to them. Under the law it was up to them to evacuate their citizens if they felt the need to. On the morning of July 4th, really in the middle of the night, is when the heavy rainfall started. So at 1242 AM, the National Weather Service updated the

flood watch to a warning, which essentially guaranteed that flooding was either imminent or it was already occurring. At 1 27 in the morning, less than an hour later, the National Weather Service Prediction Center announced that flash flooding was likely to happen overnight and significant impacts were possible. The National Weather Service updated its earlier flood warning post at 2.14 in the morning to expand the areas of impact.

The National Weather Service posted to accepte at 4 a.m. That quote, a very dangerous flash flooding event is ongoing and at 5.15 a.m. it announced a flash flooding emergency. Now those flash flooding emergencies it says are exceedingly rare. Those alerts are only issued under severe threats to human life and catastrophic damage.

At 6.16 a.m. the Curvelle Police Department posted on Facebook that the river flooding was a life-threatening event and that anyone near the Guadalupe River needs to move to higher ground now. And around that time is really when the majority of the damage was done. In fact between the hours of 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. the Guadalupe River is said to have risen about 36 feet. By Friday late morning, there were search and rescue teams on the ground and in the air. There were about 1,000 local, state, and federal officials helping with the search and rescue

operation and that operation is still ongoing. Now, I'm sure at this point all of you have heard about Camp Mystic, but Camp Mystic is a Christian girls camp along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas. There were about 750 girls on site when the floods hit, and according to a counselor, the cabins were completely flooded with water in the night. Campers were then put onto military trucks and evacuated, however, 27 campers and counselors, mostly campers, were very tragically swept away when that flood hit. As of today, about 10 campers and one counselor were still missing. According to local media reports, the camp director

Dick Eastland, he also died while trying to save the girls in the camp. We have since learned from the mud lines along the cabins at the camp that the water rose at least six feet from the floor. And keep in mind, I mean, these campers were sleeping in their bunks, right, when this happened. So that is just a terrible, terrible situation. Now, I wanna quickly talk about the response because a lot of you had asked when this happened. So that is just a terrible, terrible situation. Now I want

to quickly talk about the response because a lot of you had asked whether the federal hiring freezes or funding cuts affected the response to the floods or at least the preparedness of the floods. So first I'll briefly talk about the response and then we'll talk about any possible effects of both of those things. On Sunday President Trump signed a major disaster declaration which will help to ensure that the first responders have the resources that they need. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was on the ground yesterday with Texas, or sorry, not yesterday over the weekend, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. FEMA was activated following Trump's disaster declaration,

and then according to the DHS, are US Coast Guard helicopters, you know Helping search and rescue efforts by air states like Florida have also pledged their own state resources to help, Texas So there are a lot of boots on the ground as far as funding cuts and hiring freezes affecting the preparedness that we don't know Some critics have said that Trump's actions to cut federal workers and leave the role of responding to natural disasters largely to the states may have led to a failure in preventative steps here, but there's no way to know that for sure at this point. And National Weather Service representatives have disputed that assertion. We know that the Trump administration did cut about 600 employees from the National

Weather Service, which of course is the agency responsible for in cases like this, predicting the severity of floods and issuing preventative warnings to residents who might be impacted. We also know that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received cuts and is currently understaffed in many of its weather-related departments. However, former NOA director Rick Spenard said he could not say for certain whether federal cuts would have impacted the lack of warning given to Texas residents prior to the floods. And then there are other, there are multiple meteorologists that have come out and said there actually wasn't a lack of warning, which we'll get into in a minute.

The former NOA director said that the cuts inevitably could degrade the agency's ability to deliver information, but in this case, he did not tie one to the other. A National Weather Service representative told CNN that while the Austin San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination specialist who serves as a link between forecasters and emergency managers, and also said that a local National Weather Service office in Texas is operating with seven open roles. There were adequate staffing resources

in the forecast offices. The National Weather Service said it even brought on extra staff ahead of the storm in anticipation of a dangerous night. We've also heard, as I said, from some meteorologists around the country. Alan Gerard, the former director of the Analysis and Understanding branch at the National Severe Storms Laboratory of the NOAA, wrote in a Substack post, quote, What I have been able to see about this event shows me that the National Weather Service did a solid job. Similarly, there's little evidence that any of the recent cuts

to NOAA and the National Weather Service negatively impacted services for this event, regardless of what may be being said on social media." End quote. A Houston-based meteorologist, Matt Lanzas, similarly wrote in a sub-sec post, quote, in this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing or budget issues within the NOAA and the National Weather Service played any role at all in this event. Anyone using this event to claim that is being dishonest.

There are many places you can go with expressing thoughts on the current and proposed cuts. We've been very vocal about them here, but this is not the right event for those takes, end quote. John Morales, a Florida-based meteorologist, he wrote on X that the cuts, quote, did not impact the warning process but may have impacted coordination. And Avery Tomasco, a meteorologist at CBS Houston, said, quote, all I'll say is this. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for Kerr County more than 12 hours ahead of the catastrophic flood.

A flash flood warning was issued for Hunt and Ingram three hours before the Guadalupe started to climb. They did their job and they did it well." End quote. Okay, so there's no real easy way to move on from that story. So we're just going to switch gears a bit and talk about Alligator Alcatraz, another subject matter that you all really wanted me to talk about.

This is the new detention center for undocumented migrants in the Florida Everglades. This facility was authorized by an emergency order that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued in June. Per that order, construction was to be completed in just eight days. And it did officially just open on July 1st with the first detainees arriving on July 2nd. A little bit about the facility it's located on a three square mile property at a small

former training airport and it includes tent structures to eventually detain up to 5,000 undocumented immigrants. Currently as we'll talk about there's about 3,000 beds but they do plan to increase that. There are more than 200 security cameras on site, more than 28,000 feet of barbed wire, and 400 security personnel. As of now, the facility is holding about 3,000 beds, but it is expected to expand in increments of 500 until it reaches its full capacity of 5,000 in the next couple of weeks. The name of the facility, of course, comes from the fact that the Everglades, where the facility is, is full of alligators. If you've ever traveled across South Florida, you know that that area of the state is called Alligator Alley. It's called that for a reason. So as I said, the first detainees

arrived at the facility on the second. The process of sending immigrants to this center works in tandem with Florida law enforcement officers who partner with ICE to arrest and detain undocumented migrants under ICE's 287G program, which we've talked about it basically gives state and local law enforcement the ability to work with ICE in detaining these individuals. The individuals are then taken to alligator alcatraz where ICE and police officers are allowed to interrogate them while they're in custody and detain them for deportation. As far as cost goes, the facility is expected to cost $450 million and it will be funded

through state and federal funds. Now the information we've received thus far is a bit confusing. I'll tell you what we know. What it seems like is that the state is funding the operations at the facility but federal funds will be used for the construction of the facility. So the DHS said in part quote, DHS has not implemented authorized directed or funded Florida's temporary detention center. Florida is constructing and operating the facility using state funds on state lands, under state emergency authority, and a pre-existing general delegation of federal authority to

implement immigration functions. Florida has received no federal funds, nor has it applied for federal funds related to the temporary detention center." End quote. With that said though, during President Trump's visit to the site last week, he said the federal government was going to help reimburse Florida for certain costs and help with construction through the FEMA Shelter and Services Program. That FEMA Shelter and Services Program has, it was created under the Biden administration. It's been used in the past to fund operations

for detaining and housing undocumented immigrants. DeSantis told reporters that the site will be funded largely by the FEMA program, saying to reporters, quote, alligator alcatraz will be funded largely by FEMA's Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens. Now it's being used to detain criminal aliens while they await deportation."

End quote. DHS spokesperson, Trisha McLaughlin, also confirmed in a statement that FEMA funding would help pay for the facility. Now the Shelter and Services Program is is reimbursement based. So states first spend their own funds and then they apply for reimbursement. So far there has not been any clarification as to whether Florida has already issued a request for reimbursement, though quotes from DeSantis do indicate that this will likely happen in the future if it hasn't happened already.

On Thursday, this is just a parallel storyline, five Florida Democratic senators, or not senators, state lawmakers showed up at the facility for an official legislative site visit, but they were denied entry. In a joint statement before their visit, the lawmakers said, quote, as lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers and expose the abuse before it becomes the national blueprint." However, as I said, the lawmakers were ultimately denied entry by law enforcement and they subsequently responded to that denial in another joint statement saying, "...this is a blatant abuse of power and an attempt to conceal human rights violations from the public eye."

A lot of you asked me to cover the arguments for and against the construction of a facility like this. to conceal human rights violations from the public eye." End quote. A lot of you asked me to cover the arguments for and against the construction of a facility like this. So primarily opponents are concerned that the site could become permanent, right? They're saying it's temporary right now. Some are concerned it could become permanent and also present long-term political

and environmental damage. In fact, some environmental groups like Friends of the Everglades have already filed a lawsuit. They are attempting to stop operations and construction. They argue that the site harms the ecosystem of the Everglades, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, because of its biodiversity. De Santis responded to those environmental claims saying the site does not include any plans for sewers that could potentially be harmful to the land. And he said there will be quote unquote zero impact on the Everglades. DeSantis has also said the site is temporary, though, like I said, critics are worried it will continue to run for months or years during the Trump

presidency. Others are concerned about conditions at the facility between the heat, mosquitoes, frequent rainfall. In fact, there was some flooding just last week after a period of heavy rain. Florida's like that. Florida gets some crazy storms sometimes. State officials though, they sent contractors in to manage the flooding overnight and they said the facility can withstand a category two hurricane and that these little bouts of rain aren't a big deal. Supporters of the site argue that it's legal and necessary to carry out deportation efforts and to encourage those in the country unlawfully to self-deport rather than being sent to a facility like this one. So that's just

kind of a brief overview of the arguments on both sides. I know you had asked about that so that's what you need to know. Let's take our first break here. When we come back we'll quickly talk about Elon Musk's new political party, and then we'll dive into the big, beautiful bill. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cashback, the most savings on your shopping.

So join Rakuten and start getting cashback at Sephora, Uniqlo, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cashback. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Rakuten.ca. Welcome back. Over the weekend, Elon Musk announced a new political party in a post on X. He wrote, quote, by a factor of two to one, you want a new political party and you shall have it. When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste and graft, we live in a one party system,

not a democracy. Today, the America party is formed to give you back your freedom. So that factor of two to one that he's referencing is the result of a poll that he conducted on July 4th on X, and that poll said, quote, Independence Day is the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two party, some would say uniparty system. Should we create the America party? 1.2 million X users responded to that poll. 65.4 of them answered yes. Notably, Musk's announcement

of the America party comes after the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, right? And Musk has very publicly criticized the bill and the administration for increasing government spending. Now, the extent to which Musk has actually formed a party or is planning to is still unclear. If he were to form an official political party, he would have to legally file with the Federal Election Commission. And according to recent FEC filings, he has not done that yet. We know that Musk's party would be fiscally conservative, aiming to spend as little federal funds as possible. It would be pro-gun and pro-cryptocurrencies. A user on X asked Musk if the America Party platform would do the following. Reduce debt. Modernize the military with AI and robotics. Accelerate to win

in AI. Support less regulation across the board but especially in energy. Promote free speech and natalism but have centrist policies everywhere else. Musk's response was, yeah. Throughout the weekend, Musk continued to post on X, writing at one point, quote, when and where should we hold the inaugural American Party Congress? He also reposted another X post that said, quote, America Party could soak up a lot of the existing Dem base that feel politically homeless and hate extremism."

Musk did say that his party would actively play a role in the 2026 midterm elections and focus on supporting House and Senate candidates, but like I said, there have been no FEC filings, so we'll have to see what happens there. Following Musk's announcement, Tesla stock dropped 8%, which isn't entirely surprising considering the Tesla stock was hurting when Musk dove further into politics last year and also during his recent feud with Trump over the big beautiful bill. Notably third parties here in the United States they historically fail because of the electoral college and the way that our elections are set up so some conservatives are concerned that Musk's party would fail to gain enough traction to make any meaningful changes and instead just do damage to the Republican Party by taking away Republican votes.

Okay, now for the discussion you've all been waiting for, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, better known as the Big Beautiful Bill. Before I answer the many questions all of you have, I just want to say a few things at the outset. Number one, as I said in the beginning of this episode, today's Q&A will focus on Medicare, Medicaid, and student loans. Thursday's episode will focus on taxes, the debt ceiling increase, and a few miscellaneous topics. The second thing I want to note is that a lot of you asked me to tell you what the truth is about this bill, right?

You wanted to know whether it's actually good or bad. The thing is, I can't tell you whether it's good or bad. I can tell you the truth about what the bill says, but I can't say whether something is good or bad. That's too subjective. Some think the work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP are great. Others think it's terrible. Some think the increase in funding

for the Defense Department is a good thing. Others think it's unnecessary. So I won't be telling you what's good and bad, but I will tell you what the bill says and then you can decide whether you like certain things or don't. And then as a final note, you'll hear me refer to the Big Beautiful Bill sometimes as a bill, other times as a law. It is now a law because it has been signed by the president, but I will be using these terms interchangeably just because it's so commonly referred to

as the big beautiful bill despite being a law. So I think both terms work here. Starting off, a lot of you asked me to explain the big beautiful bill to you as if you were seven years old. So what I'll do is I'll explain the general concept of the bill as if you were seven. You know how when you were younger, at least when I was younger,

my parents made me this big list of chores. Clean your room, take out the trash, do the dishes, et cetera. And then I had siblings, right? So me and my siblings would split up the chores each week. Everyone had to do their part. And I think I just said I had siblings. I still very much have siblings,

but anyway, you get the point. We had to split up the tasks by person. Everyone had to kind of pitch it. Imagine the big beautiful bill is a big chore chart for the whole country. Okay. It's a lot of different little things put together to make one big list. How to spend money, how much to tax, how much to save, et cetera. In this example, Congress is like the parents. They make the chore list. And then the rest of the federal government is like the kids. They're the ones that actually do the chores. They follow the plan, they build the roads,

they run the programs, et cetera. So Congress says, here's the big, beautiful bill, the big list of what we want done. The rest of the government says, okay, we'll do it. Now, before we get into the questions, I wanna make one thing clear that I feel like most people don't know. You know how we've been hearing a lot about these cuts to various programs like 1 trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid,

287 billion in cuts to SNAP. When we hear these numbers, what they are is their estimates from analysts like the Congressional Budget Office, right? So these numbers aren't explicitly mentioned in the bill. Congress isn't saying, hey, we're mandating 287 billion in cuts for SNAP or we're mandating one trillion in cuts for Medicaid. Instead, these analysts are looking at how much less will be spent on these programs by the federal government due to heightened work requirements,

more funding contribution from the states, less contribution from the federal government, et cetera, and calculating a number that they think will be the total amount cut or saved, depending on how you look at it, by the federal government. Now that's not to say these estimates aren't accurate, it's just to clarify that these numbers are not explicitly mentioned in the bill. So now let's answer some of your questions. I'll start with more general questions and then we'll work our way into the more topic specific questions.

Starting with, are all bills as big as the big beautiful bill? Most bills are not, but some bills are. Okay, so the big beautiful bill is around 900 pages. Most bills, and you gotta think about this, there are a lot of bills that pass, right? Most, or not even passed, but introduced and voted on. Most bills are small and typically deal with one specific issue, but sometimes

Congress combines a ton of stuff into one giant bill, like the big beautiful bill. But typically, when bills deal with money or taxes, they're usually pretty big. Another example of a massive bill would be the Affordable Care Act, which was passed under big. Another example of a massive bill would be the Affordable Care Act, which was passed under Obama. That was more than 2,000 pages. And then usually all of the consolidated appropriations bills are more than 1,000 pages, because again, those are bills that set the budget

for the whole government. So usually, no, most bills are much shorter, but there are definitely bills that are very big like this one. Next question, are the changes in the Big Beautiful bill permanent? No, but let me explain this one a little bit further. So some parts of the bill say things like ICE gets X amount of money for the upcoming fiscal year. That's obviously a short-term change and is therefore not permanent, right? Then you have other parts of the bill that last until Congress changes them. So these parts of the bill are more permanent in a sense.

They're meant to be permanent but nothing in Congress is ever truly permanent and that's because a future Congress can always rewrite, extend, change, cancel certain parts of a bill. If let's just say after the 2026 midterm elections, Congress switches to a Democratic majority, the Democratic Party can then try to change parts of the big beautiful bill or even repeal parts of the bill completely. They would just need to pass the new changes through both the House and the Senate and you know, hope that the president doesn't veto it.

Of course, the president could veto any new legislation that would repeal or change any parts of his bill, but Congress could then override that veto with a two-thirds majority. And even if it didn't happen after these upcoming midterms, because Trump will still be in office, so hypothetically, any attempt to repeal or change wouldn't pass and would get vetoed, if at some point down the road, a new Congress wants to change parts of the

bill, they can certainly try to do that. As an example, that Affordable Care Act that I just mentioned a minute ago, that has had parts of it change and repealed over the years. So that's why I say nothing is ever permanent in Congress. It can be, but even when Congress wants something to be permanent or writes a bill as if it's permanent, a future Congress can always change it. Does the big beautiful bill take effect immediately or not until 2026? Well, some of the provisions take effect now, some take effect later this year, some take effect in 2026, some even take effect later than that in 2029. It really just depends on the provision. As we go through the provisions, I'll try to note when they each take effect. Okay, so now let's get into the more pointed questions starting with does the bill actually

cut Medicaid and Medicare? When will people start losing benefits and who is going to lose their health care? The media is saying between 12 and 17 million people, is that true? Okay, so first of all, when we talk about cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, we're talking about the implementation or revocation of rules that in effect cause less money to be spent on these programs, right? For instance, there are increased work requirements for Medicaid that might disqualify millions of people. There are new cost-sharing mandates that take some of the financial burden off the federal

government. There are new provider payment caps. All of these things cut Medicaid spending from the federal budget. That's what we mean when we say cuts. It's not that the programs are going away completely. I just want to make that clear for anyone who might be confused. Now quickly before I answer this set of questions, I do want to note the difference between Medicare and Medicaid because this is important. Medicare is care mainly for people aged 65 or older but also for some younger people with certain disabilities. It's entirely federal.

It helps, you know, cover hospital care, doctor's visits, prescription drugs, and private plan options. Medicaid is aid for low income people. It's run by both the federal government and the states, but each state actually has its own rules about who's eligible and each state has its own name for their Medicare program. The key difference between the two for the most part is that

Medicaid is about income whereas Medicare is about age and that's why the work requirements were increased for Medicaid but they don't exist for Medicare because those on Medicare are already past the working age or have disabilities so they don't have to work. Those on Medicaid are on Medicaid solely because of income. They're not limited by age or disability and therefore subject to work requirements. So with those things in mind, let's go back to the first question which is does the bill actually cut Medicaid and Medicare? Yes. Analysts estimate that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will lead to about a

trillion dollars in cuts or savings depending on how you look at it in Medicaid spending over the next 10 years. As for Medicare, the law triggers a to about a trillion dollars in cuts or savings, depending on how you look at it, in Medicaid spending over the next 10 years. As for Medicare, the law triggers a 4% cut to Medicare payments to providers starting in fiscal year 2026. Analysts say that will total about $500 billion over eight years. So we'll talk about the Medicaid cuts first and then Medicare. Contributing to the estimated $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid is the new work requirements, right? Those work requirements take effect by December 31st, 2026, but states can request a delay up until

the end of 2027. Once those work requirements take effect, in order to receive Medicaid benefits, individuals will have to show that they spend at least 80 hours each month working, receiving job training, attending school, or doing community service. And this applies to adults aged 19 to 64 who can work, meaning they're not disabled, and they either don't have children

or their children are older than 14 years old. There's also an exemption for pregnant people. People already enrolled in Medicaid would have to prove compliance for at least one to three months twice a year. New Medicaid applicants would have to prove that they meet the work requirements for at least one to three months before enrolling. Under the law, states will now have to conduct eligibility checks every six months rather than every 12 months, and states also do have the option to implement more frequent eligibility checks if they wish to do so. As for the 4% cut to Medicare payments, what that means is starting in

fiscal year 2026, the government will pay doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers 4% less for treating Medicare patients than they currently do. And the reason that this is happening is not because it's explicitly written into the Big Beautiful bill. It's actually because of another law called the PAYGO. What the PAYGO says is that if Congress increases the deficit and doesn't pay for that increase by either cutting spending or raising taxes, then automatic cuts kick in to pay for that new debt. Now, we obviously know that this new law increased the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. It also calls for more spending and it cut taxes. It didn't raise taxes. It cut them. So the law automatically triggered PAYGO.

Because Medicare is one of the biggest pots of money the federal government spends, when PAYGO kicks in, part of those automatic cuts are aimed at reducing how much the government pays doctors, hospitals, and other providers for treating Medicare patients. Now by law, the automatic cut to Medicare can't be more than 4% per year. So while the big beautiful bill doesn't explicitly say that payments to providers will be cut by 4% in fiscal year 2026, it'll happen that way because of PAYGO, right? The debt needs to be paid for. Now I want to be clear that the 4% payment reduction does not mean Medicare beneficiaries

are losing their benefits. It means that doctors and hospitals get paid 4% less for treating Medicare patients. Now, possible effects of doctors and hospitals being paid less include doctors no longer treating Medicare patients if they think payments are too low to cover their costs. It also might be harder to find certain specialists who accept new Medicare patients because they know they won't be paid as much by the government to treat those patients. It could also cause hospitals and clinics that rely heavily on Medicare funding to incur financial difficulties. So while Medicare beneficiaries are still entitled to all of their benefits under this law, under the big beautiful bill, it could

become harder for them to access treatment. Speaking of financial difficulties for hospitals, I want to address this claim that rural hospitals are going to close because of this bill. The reason people are saying this is because rural hospitals get a lot of their revenue from Medicaid. On average, these hospitals will lose about 21 cents for every dollar of Medicaid payments, which will total about 70 billion dollars over the next 10 years. On top of that, rural hospitals also depend significantly on Medicare, so a 4% cut in Medicare payments reduces their revenue even further. And you also have to keep in mind that according to an American Hospital Association analysis, 48% of rural hospitals are already

operating at a loss. So for those reasons, people have concerns that rural hospitals will be forced to close as a result of this bill. Let's take our second break here. When we come back, I'll finish the big beautiful bill Q&A and then we'll do some quick hitters and critical thinking. Welcome back. Before we took a break, we talked about the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Now I want to answer the question of who is going to lose their healthcare coverage.

The media is saying between 12 and 17 million people. Is that true? Well, according to a preliminary estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, because of this bill, the number of uninsured people in the United States would increase by 11.8 million by 2034. So that would be that would almost be back to the 2009 levels, which was before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law Currently the number of uninsured is close to 27 million according to the CDC

So if that estimate is correct by the Congressional Budget Office that would mean that by 2034 There would be close to 39 million people uninsured So let's talk about who those people are that will lose coverage under this new bill If you are an adult and you either don't have kids or your kids are over the age of 14 and you are not either elderly, pregnant or disabled, and you are not meeting that 80 hour work requirement, either work, job training, attending school

or doing community service, you will lose your Medicaid coverage. If you don't file your paperwork proving that you are meeting that work requirement, you will lose your coverage. Now what don't file your paperwork proving that you're meeting that work requirement, you will lose your coverage. Now what's interesting about Medicaid and the new work requirements is, first of all, this will most certainly be challenged in the courts and I'll tell you why. So Arkansas did something similar in 2018. It was later ended by a judge. But

basically Arkansas required Medicaid beneficiaries aged 30 to 49, they eventually extended it, but initially it was aged 30 to 49 to either work or complete some other qualifying activity for 80 hours a month unless otherwise exempt. Within nine months of launching the new requirements, roughly 18,000 people lost coverage, either because they didn't qualify or because they weren't aware of the new rule

or because they didn't submit the proper paperwork proving that they were meeting the requirements or because they didn't know how to get verified. So to give you some context, to give you some numbers, roughly 60,000 people of those enrolled in Arkansas's Medicaid program were subject to these new work requirements. Of those 60,000, 92% or just under 56,000 people were already meeting the work requirement. So that means that roughly 4,000 were not meeting the work requirement, but as you can tell from those numbers, it wasn't just those 4,000 that lost coverage. There

was an additional 14,000 people that lost coverage. And like I said, this is mostly because people were unaware of the new rule or didn't know how to submit the proper paperwork or didn't properly submit the proper paperwork. Now ultimately, the judge in Arkansas put an end to the program because he felt that the Arkansas HHS secretary didn't properly explain why limiting Medicaid coverage would still meet Medicaid's purpose of providing care and that removing 18,000 people from coverage didn't promote Medicaid's goal. So it'll be interesting to see what happens here because I'm sure that these new work

requirements that were enacted in the big, beautiful bill will get challenged in a very similar way. And the people that challenge it will likely use that case as their precedent. And it'll probably end up before the Supreme Court. But continuing on with who might lose coverage here, those on Medicaid who can't afford the new costs for coverage might also drop. Those on Medicaid who can't afford the new costs for coverage might also drop. And what I mean by that is the bill allows states to add new costs like copays for people specifically covered under Medicaid expansion. So we obviously know what Medicaid is at this point, but for 2010, Medicaid was mostly for

low income kids, low income parents with kids, pregnant people, and some disabled adults and low incomeincome seniors. But in 2010, with Obama's Affordable Care Act, states were given the option to expand Medicaid to cover even more low-income adults, even if they don't have kids or a disability. And under the Affordable Care Act, states could cover all adults under the age of 65 who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level. If a state opted into this program, the government paid about 90% of the cost, the state pays the other 10. And that's currently

still in effect. There are 40 states plus DC that have this expanded Medicaid. But now, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states that have expanded Medicaid have to start charging co-pays of up to $35 per medical service for certain adults with incomes between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty level. That's equivalent to an annual income of between $15,000 and $21,000 roughly. However, annual co-pays are also capped at 5% of a family's income per this bill. So annual co-pays can't go above that amount. But that's to say that if you are subject to these new co- copays and you don't pay them, you can also lose coverage.

That change takes effect in fiscal year 2029. So these are the various ways in which people can lose effect. It's not that the bill is actively kicking off this person, this person, that person. It's that if you don't meet these requirements, if you don't pay these co-pays, if you don't do these things that are now required under law, that's when you could lose your coverage. My daughter is a type one diabetic. Will she lose her Medicaid? Will the cuts impact children who qualify for Medicaid

with a disability waiver? Let's take this one question at a time. If we're talking about the new Medicaid work requirement leading to a loss in coverage for children, the answer is no. The work requirement only applies to certain working-age adults, not kids. Children are completely exempt. Even if their parents don't meet the work requirements, eligible children are still entitled to coverage. So your daughter who has type 1 diabetes, she should not lose her Medicaid coverage. As for the second question, will the cuts impact children who qualify for

Medicaid with a disability waiver? Not directly, but potentially indirectly. And here's what I mean by that. It's possible that if a state runs out of money because they are now spending more due to these limits on federal reimbursements that are included in the bill, states can choose to freeze new waiver slots. They can choose to tighten eligibility, states can choose to freeze new waiver slots, they can choose to tighten eligibility, they can choose to reduce services within its waiver budget. So that's a possibility. However, I also wanna note that states

can't just kick people off without a federally approved plan amendment or a waiver change. And states would typically freeze new slots rather than terminating active waivers. So if your child has an active waiver, they're less at risk. But could the Big Beautiful bill cause states to indirectly limit new approvals and or reduce benefits?

Possibly. Can you talk about the impact of the new SNAP work requirements and students' free school lunches? Okay, so as we've talked about, the bill expands work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, but it also implemented those same work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries. SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's the main federal program in the United States that helps low-income people buy food. If a child's family gets SNAP, that child is automatically eligible for free school meals at public schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program. And by the way,

the way that this works is these schools use SNAP participation to automatically enroll kids in the National School Lunch Program without requiring extra paperwork. So how do the cuts and work requirements affect free school lunches? Well, for one, we don't know for sure whether school lunches will be affected, right? If they are affected, we don't know to what extent. What we do know is that certain provisions of this law could have the effect of reducing the number of families enrolled in SNAP and therefore reducing the number of children that have access to free school lunches. So one of the concerns from some parents is that the new work requirements will be too burdensome.

Currently, the SNAP work requirements generally exempt families where one parent is working and one parent is a stay-at-home. The current rules also exempt people with dependents under the age of 18, but under the new law, both parents would have to work and report the minimum of 20 hours a week, and the work requirements would extend to those with dependence between the ages of 14 and 18. So if parents can't meet those requirements or don't properly submit their paperwork and therefore lose their SNAP benefits, that would then cause their children to lose their free

lunches. The other concern for some parents is that now that states are having to pay more money out of pocket for SNAP, they will start to crack down on eligibility. So the new law now requires states to pay a larger share of SNAP administrative costs and in some cases a larger share of SNAP benefit costs. These changes could cause states to tighten eligibility rules or reduce benefit amounts because they're getting less money from the government and spending more out of their own pockets, right? And of course, if less people are eligible for SNAP,

less children could be eligible for free lunches. So that's where the concern is coming from. But let's talk about how these cost sharing changes work. Currently, states pay 0% of SNAP benefit costs. The federal government pays 100%. Under the new law, starting in fiscal year 2028, so long as states stay under a 6% error rate, which is how often they pay too much or too little

in SNAP benefits, their share of SNAP benefit costs will stay at 0%. The federal government will continue paying 100% of the SNAP benefit costs, so long as a state's error rate is below 6%. If a state's error rate is between 6 and 8%, the state will now have to pay 5% of the benefit cost.

If a state's error rate is between 8 and 10%, the state will now have to pay 10% of the benefit cost. And if a state's error rate is more than 10%, the state will now have to pay 15% of the benefit cost. And again, that's starting in fiscal year 2028. and 10%, the state will now have to pay 15% of the benefit costs. And again, that's starting in fiscal year 2028. When it comes to administrative SNAP costs, starting in fiscal year 2027, states will be on the hook for 75% of SNAP administrative costs, and that is up from the current 50%

that they are on the hook for now. Currently, the federal government pays 50% of SNAP administrative costs. The states pay the other 50%. But starting in fiscal year 2028, the federal government will pay 25% and the states will pay 75%. So what this means is that in the next couple of years, states could be on the hook for anywhere from 25%

to 40% more in SNAP costs than they currently are. And those increased costs could lead, not guaranteed, could lead to more restrictions on the program to reduce the costs to the states. So that's how that works. Does the bill remove SNAP and Medicaid benefits for undocumented immigrants? Yes, the bill says that one can only be eligible

for SNAP and Medicaid if they are a resident of the United States and either a citizen or national of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence as an immigrant, an alien who has been granted the status of Cuban and Haitian entrant, or an individual who resides in the United States in accordance with a compact of free association. Does the bill prohibit Medicaid funding for being used to, from being used to pay for gender transition services for children and adults?

Yes. And it also prohibits Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding as well. Didn't Trump say while he was running that he wouldn't cut SNAP or Medicare? SNAP, not so much. Medicare, yes, he did say that many times. Okay, the last few questions are about student loans. What are the actual

changes to student loans? When do these take effect? And how will students be able to afford college with caps on aid? So some of the changes to student loans, for one, the bill actually expands access to Pell grants, which is a type of federal aid for low-income families. At the same time, though, the bill limits how much people can now borrow from the federal government. So we'll talk about the Pell Grant expansion, and then we'll talk about the caps on aid. Starting in the 2026-2027 school year, students from low-income backgrounds who would normally qualify for a federal Pell Grant can now get aid for short-term workforce training. It's

a new grant called a Workforce Pell Grant. It allows borrowers to spend the money on training programs that last 8 to 15 weeks and lead to some kind of credential or academic credit towards a degree or certification program. The bill also increases Pell funding for the years 2026 to 2028 by about $10.5 billion. However, the law also tightened the enrollment requirements for Pell grants. Now, students have to be enrolled at least half-time, or nine credits, to be eligible for a Pell grant. The current enrollment requirement is six, so that'll go up to nine under this new law. As far as the caps go, unsubsidized loans will be capped at $20,500 per year and $100,000 lifetime.

For professional degrees like medical school and law school, borrowers are capped at $50,000 per year and $200,000 lifetime. There is a new lifetime borrowing limit for all federal student loans of $257,500. Parent borrowing through the Parent PLUS Loan program will now be capped at $20,000 per year per student and $65,000 lifetime.

And Grad PLUS loans, which currently allow grad students to borrow up to their entire cost of attendance minus any federal aid, will be completely eliminated. As far as loan repayment options, starting in mid-2026, there will be two repayment plan choices. That's down from the seven options borrowers currently have now. Currently, there are four different income-driven repayment plans and three different standard repayment plans.

But after July 1st, 2026, borrowers will only be able to enroll in one type of income-driven repayment plan or one type of standard repayment plan. The standard repayment plan comes with fixed payments which allows borrowers to repay their loan amount over 10 to 25 years based on their loan amount and the income based repayment plan called the repayment assistance plan allows borrowers to pay monthly payments between 1 and 10 percent of their discretionary income. Now currently there are

about 8 million borrowers enrolled in Biden's SAVE repayment plan, which is going away. The new law requires SAVE borrowers to choose between a standard repayment plan and the repayment assistance plan sometime between July 2026 and July 2028. If borrowers don't enroll in a new plan by July 2, 2028, they'll be automatically enrolled in the repayment assistance plan. And same with the pay plan. That's another income driven repayment plan created by Biden. Those borrowers will be automatically enrolled in the repayment assistance plan. So to be clear, current borrowers using any income driven repayment plan will be moved to the repayment assistance plan gradually, but must switch by July 2nd, 2028. And new borrowers who

take out loans on or after July 1st, 2026 will only have these two repayment options available to them. And then finally, on the topic of loan repayment, the law eliminates the unemployment and economic deferment options for new loans starting July 1st, 2026. So deferment basically allows borrowers to defer payments during times of financial hardship. Now for these new loans starting July 1st, 2026, borrowers can still get forbearance, which is a delay period limited to nine months within any two year period

and gives you that same reprieve in times of financial hardship, but new borrowers won't be able to extend that deferment through these other programs. And by the way, just for clarification, existing loans can still utilize economic or unemployment deferment. These new rules are just for those loans that will be issued after July 1st, 2026. And then finally, to answer the last question, which was how will students be able to afford college with caps on aid? The answer is private loans. Of course, they can still borrow up to the cap

in federal loans, but if they need more than that, they'll have to turn to private loans through private lenders and banks. Now for some quick hitters, we're just doing a couple today, literally only two, because today's episode is so dense. If you want more quick hitters, make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter.

That'll hit your inbox at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. It goes out every Tuesday and Friday and it covers quick hitters in not just politics but also business, health, international, and pop culture news. The signup link can always be found by clicking the link in the show notes of each episode. President Trump has started sending letters

to various countries, setting a tariff rate on their imports. He'll be sending those letters between today and Wednesday, which is the day that those liberation tariffs are scheduled to take effect after previously being delayed. Today, Trump shared copies of two letters. He's already sent one to South Korea, another to Japan. And according to those letters, both of those countries will face a 25% blanket tariff on imports starting August 1st. The DOJ and FBI said today that Jeffrey Epstein did in fact die by suicide and did not have a client list.

In this new memo, the agencies said they have concluded that they have no evidence that Epstein was murdered or that he blackmailed powerful figures or kept a client list. The administration released a video along with the memo seemingly showing that no one entered the area of the prison where Epstein was being held the night he died in 2019. Interestingly, FBI Director Cash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino previously said they thought Epstein was murdered, but those theories were shared by them before being appointed to their positions in the FBI. All right, now for some critical thinking. For those that are new, this is a segment that I try to incorporate whenever I can. It's not meant to be too complex. It's just

meant to be a challenge. For today, we're going back to the work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP. If you generally support these new work requirements, how do you rectify the situation where people already meeting those work requirements end up losing their coverage, either because they missed paperwork deadlines or they're not sure how to file the proper paperwork, does the policy achieve its goal if the loss of coverage is not tied to actual work effort? And if not, how would you fix that if you were a lawmaker? Now if you generally oppose the new work requirements, if the goal is to prevent people who can work from relying on government help when they don't need it,

is there a fair way to enforce that without accidentally hurting people who are working but having a hard time navigating the reporting rules? How would you accomplish that? And then regardless of what side you're on, think about what trade-offs states might have to make if they now have to pay a larger share of snap and medicaid costs what new rules or taxes might states impose to make up for that extra spending that's what i have for you today thank you so much for being here as always please don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter if you enjoyed this episode and you learned a lot please share it with a friend and you know that way they can get caught up on the bill and get informed as to what's going on. Have a fantastic next couple of days

and I will talk to you on Thursday.