July 9, 2025 in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s victory lap over the passage of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and spending bill is running into a roadblock.
After voting for the federal measure that threatened to cause tens of thousands of Wisconsinites to lose Medicaid coverage, the battleground district Republican has attempted to take credit for securing additional Medicaid funding through the state budget.
He’s said he “helped secure” $1 billion a year in Medicaid funding for Wisconsin and suggested Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed the state budget in a late-night session “because I asked him personally.”
Evers’s office, however, said Van Orden had nothing to do with that state’s scramble to secure Medicaid funding ahead of the enactment of the bill Van Orden supported that would slash federal Medicaid dollars.
The comments are the latest from Van Orden following the signing of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last week, which every Wisconsin Republican backed. Democrats have castigated Republicans over the measure’s cuts to health care and food assistance programs and suggested the bill will play a role in 2026 campaigns.
Van Orden ahead of the July 3 House vote on the legislation highlighted a letter he sent to Evers the day prior urging the governor to sign the state’s budget “without delay” because it included a provision that would expand Wisconsin’s Medicaid provider tax and allow the state to collect more federal Medicaid funds — something Trump’s bill sought to limit.
Since Trump signed the bill into law on July 4, Van Orden has been touting that letter in a flurry of tweets — sparring with Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan on X and attacking Eau Claire Democrat Rebecca Cooke, one of his 2026 challengers.
The governor’s office, though, has noted Evers had already planned to sign the state budget before Van Orden’s involvement and ahead of the federal bill’s enactment and had been working for months on a provision to raise the state’s provider tax on hospitals.
“You never personally advocated to @GovEvers or our office to increase the hospital assessment in the bipartisan budget deal until it was already in the deal,” Britt Cudaback, a spokesperson for Evers, wrote to Van Orden on X. “And you had zero to do with Gov. Evers deciding to sign the budget before the reconciliation bill was signed.”
Other Democrats noted Van Orden’s letter was in response to the very bill he supported that included nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid by 2034. They’ve painted his comments as an attempt to maneuver away from backlash from what they see as a politically difficult vote.
Democrats have marked Van Orden’s purple 3rd Congressional District as a top target as they seek to flip control of the House in 2026.
“Derrick had zero role with what the state legislature and the Governor did, other than causing the problem that made them need to do something,” Pocan, who frequently fights with Van Orden, wrote on X.
“This is @derrickvanorden desperately trying to save face as his vote for the Big Ugly Bill could result in roughly 30,000 of his constituents losing health care,” Philip Shulman, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, posted.
Trump’s big bill, which is now law, requires able-bodied adults to work 80 hours per month to qualify for Medicaid benefits. It freezes the provider tax in states like Wisconsin that have not expanded Medicaid, and it gradually lowers the provider tax rates in expansion states from 6% to 3.5%.
State lawmakers and Evers raced to pass the state budget last week to avoid that freeze. The budget included a provision that expanded the state’s tax on hospitals from 1.8% to 6%.
Cudaback, the governor’s spokesperson, claimed Van Orden did not reach out to Evers until June 30 — just days before the vote. And she said Evers “introduced a hospital assessment increase *in February.*”
Still, Van Orden insisted he was central in the state budget’s Medicaid provision.
“The only reason Tony signed the bill at 1:30 in the morning was to make the deadline I spoke and wrote to him about. Period. Do the math,” Van Orden said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, when it was noted the governor’s office disputes his claims.
He was more direct in his tweeted response to Cudaback.
“Why did Tony sign the bill at 1:30 am? Because I asked him personally to put politics aside,” he wrote.
“He did, and I think (sic) him for that,” he added. “You can’t lie away time or the calendar.”
Lawrence Andrea 