Republicans are increasingly on the defensive over the party’s handling of Medicaid cuts in the party’s “big, beautiful bill,” underscoring how the issue has become an early flashpoint ahead of next year’s midterms.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst recently faced an unexpectedly hostile audience at a town hall in Iowa, where her constituents jeered as she defended the GOP's proposed cuts to Medicaid-a program providing healthcare to 71 million low-income Americans,