A group of protesters demonstrated outside Rep. Mike Lawler’s satellite office at Carmel Town Hall in Mahopac on July 15, accusing the Republican of making health care less accessible by voting for the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law, commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The law allowed enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire at the end of 2025, resulting in smaller subsidies or no subsidies for many enrollees and sharply higher premiums in 2026.
Empire State Voices, an organization seeking to unseat Lawler this fall, organized the event, which drew around a dozen protesters carrying signs. At the rally, constituents also delivered a petition “demanding that Rep. Lawler support policies that lower health care costs for New York families,” ESV said in a press release.
The organization said the rally was spurred by increasing health care costs, which it said had risen “in some instances by as much as 50 percent.” The group blamed Lawler’s support for cuts to Medicaid that are “kicking families off the New York Essential Plan.”
“Rep. Lawler has continued to support House Republican leadership even as they let health care tax credits expire,” the organization said. “Rep. Mike Lawler is responsible for the premium spikes New York families are facing.”
Lawler has repeatedly called attacks over his record on Medicaid “fiction.” In a 2025 response to a LoHud.com op-ed, Lawler said he has “consistently lived up to my pledge never to cut Medicare or Social Security” and “helped champion passage of the Social Security Fairness Act to end the unfair reduction of benefits for millions of Americans, including teachers and police officers.”
“Likewise, I will never cast a vote that takes Medicaid away from eligible recipients who rely on this vital program, such as seniors, children, the intellectually and developmentally disabled, single mothers and families facing tough times,” he added. “Rather, my commitment has always been to strengthen these programs by cracking down on scam artists exploiting them at taxpayer expense.”
Lawler faces Democrat Cait Conley in the race for New York’s 17th District, a purple district that represents one of the few contested seats in the upcoming congressional elections.
Mahopac News reached out to Rep. Lawler's staff for a response on July 20.
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