July 3, 2025 (TUALATIN, Ore.) – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, a cruel and calculated piece of legislation that strips health care, food assistance, and health insurance from working families so billionaires can get a tax break. The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) condemns this bill in the strongest possible terms and calls out Rep. Cliff Bentz for his disgraceful vote in support of it. 

H.R. 1 will gut the Oregon Health Plan (OHP), our state’s Medicaid program, putting as many as 280,000 Oregonians at risk of losing coverage. It slashes critical funding that supports rural hospitals, services for seniors and people with disabilities, and care for hundreds of thousands of Oregon children. It adds punishing new bureaucratic barriers designed to kick people off Medicaid, not help them thrive. 

Rep. Bentz had a choice. He could have stood up for rural hospitals. He could have stood with the thousands of children, working parents, and caregivers in his district who rely on OHP to survive. Instead, he stood with billionaires and lobbyists. He failed his constituents. And the cost of that failure will be measured in lost lives, devastated families, and shattered communities. 

Oregon’s nurses know what’s coming. We will see more patients showing up in crisis, having lost their coverage and delayed care. We will see more hospitals slash staff, close departments, or shut down altogether. We will see more burnout, more moral injury, and more nurses forced to leave a profession they love because the system is breaking around them. 

And make no mistake; this was a choice. 

ONA will continue to work with our union partners, advocacy allies, and state leaders to fight back. We will do everything in our power to protect our patients and preserve care for Oregon’s most vulnerable. But even with that work, we know this bill will do damage that can't be undone. 

H.R. 1 is a disaster. It is a betrayal. And, thanks to Cliff Bentz and his allies, working Oregonians will pay the price.