Pediatrician Fred Rivara surprised Newsmax hosts Katrina Szish and Bob Brooks after he said President Donald Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill would "make everything worse."
Rivara made the remarks Tuesday after the network invited him to discuss his study, which found that children's health outcomes in the U.S. have deteriorated since 2007.
"To what do you and your colleagues attribute this significant decline?" Szish asked.
"Well, there's a lot of different factors going on as we outline our editorial," Rivara replied. "And unfortunately, the big terrible bill that was passed last week is just going to make all of those things worse."
"We have problems with providing adequate health care for children," he continued. "We have a problem with easy access to firearms in the United States, which leads to our firearm death rate among children and youth being 20 times greater than these other countries."
Brooks pushed back: "Doctor, do you think it's fair to blame this or put partial blame on the bill that just passed when this study was conducted from 2007 to 2023?"
"I didn't say that, did I?" Rivara insisted. "What I said is that the bill passed last week is going to make everything worse."
"Potentially!" Szish exclaimed.
"It's going to affect Medicaid, for example, like in our children's hospital, Dr. Forrest's children's hospital, 50% or more of our patients are on Medicaid," the doctor noted. "The cuts to Medicaid are going to affect our ability to take care of those children."
