Governor Kotek warns H.R.1 would slash Medicaid by about $1 trillion, vows to protect Oregon health care

Governor Kotek said she met with health care workers to hear how proposed federal changes would affect Oregonians and warned that federal legislation known as H.R.1 would make unusually large reductions to Medicaid funding.

“I am angry about the position that we have been put in,” Governor Kotek said, arguing that H.R.1 “makes the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, over $1,000,000,000,000.” She said those cuts would “hurt patients and families and put more pressure on clinics and hospitals and the people who care for all of us.”

Kotek said no state could replace federal funding at that scale, explicitly naming Oregon when she warned that the state could not substitute for the level of federal support the program receives. She framed the statement as the result of conversations with frontline health care workers and described the proposed federal change as leaving ordinary people to bear the consequences.

The governor pledged to work with health care workers and others in the state to try to protect Oregon’s health system. The statement did not announce any specific state legislation or formal action; it was presented as a public warning and call to collective advocacy.

Kotek closed by urging continued collective effort to oppose the proposal: “So let's keep fighting back and working together to fix this.”