California Medicaid Recipients In GOP District See Potential Cuts As A "Disaster"

Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, May 20, 2025…

• California legislators are considering a bill that would allow ranchers to compost livestock carcasses. AB411, introduced in February of this year, would enable ranchers to compost as much as 100 cubic yards of organic material onsite, including livestock remains. Ranchers in California currently have limited options for disposal.
• Part of President Trump’s self-described “big, beautiful” bill includes congressional Republicans’ plans to change Medicaid. The proposal would cut billions from the safety net program. Many Republican lawmakers see this as a needed savings to slash what they see as waste in the system. Recent estimates show millions of Americans stand to lose their health insurance, including in Republican health districts like Kern County.

A Proposed Bill Would Allow Ranchers In California To Compost Livestock 

Lawmakers in Sacramento are mulling over a proposed bill that would give California ranchers another option for livestock carcass disposal– composting.

As it stands, California ranchers can either send livestock carcasses to a small handful of rendering facilities or create open air pits for carcass decomposition, which attracts predators. Vice President of the California Cattlemen’s Association Kirk Wilbur sees AB 411 as a promising alternative.

“There are 42 other states that currently allow cattle carcass composting throughout the country,” Wilbur said. “So, California is not reinventing the wheel here.” The bill would allow ranchers to compost up to 100 cubic yards of organic material onsite, including the livestock remains. Wilbur says that equates to about six to eight cattle carcasses.

Kern County Residents Protest Proposed Cuts to Medicaid

A large crowd of protesters gathered outside Kern Medical Hospital in Bakersfield, California to protest potential cuts to Medicaid from the Trump Administration. Some sat in wheelchairs. Others wore lab coats. All agreed that meaningful cuts to Medicaid would be a disaster for the region. The hospital sits in a swing district held by Republican Congressman David Valadao, and his stretch of the rural Central Valley also has the highest number of Medicaid patients represented by a House Republican – nearly two-thirds of residents here, according to research by UC Berkeley.

Resident doctor Megan Haugland is in her second year at the hospital. She said the patients here are among the sickest she’s seen during her training. “The thought that our already marginalized population could lose access to that very basic resource is frightening for me,” she said. “It worries me that these already sick patients are not going to have the care that they need to be able to take care of themselves.” Haugland said a whopping 90 percent of her patients are enrolled in Medicaid.

The proposed cuts are apart of President Trump’s self-described “big, beautiful” bill that Republican lawmakers see as a way to cut down on financial waste in the system and would take away billions of dollars from the program.