As federal GOP lawmakers look to fund President Donald Trump’s major tax, immigration and energy agendas, Congress is eyeing a major Medicaid cut that would slash more than $700 billion dollars from the program over ten years.
GOP lawmakers have consistently said the bill is aimed at rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” to save money. But Democrats warn that, according to a preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the cuts could cause 8.6 million people nationwide to lose their healthcare plans over the next decade.
Around two dozen protestors with the grassroots group Four Rivers Indivisible spoke out against the proposal in western Kentucky on Tuesday, rallying outside of Republican Congressman James Comer’s office in downtown Paducah. Together, they chanted and held signs with messages in support of Medicaid, the federal health care program for poor, elderly and disabled Americans.
Leslie McColgin, one of the group’s leaders, was leading the charge with her bullhorn.
The western Kentucky organizer called the proposed cuts “shameful” and said reduced Medicaid funding could jeopardize hospitals in rural regions and other healthcare providers.
“A lot of people are describing this area as something of a medical desert and anything that hurts medical payments is going to make that worse,” she said. “Those people are still going to get sick. They’re still going to need care and they’re just going to go to the emergency room and pay it that way, although the emergency room might not be there because this is going to hurt our rural hospitals and providers particularly.”
While the impacts from proposed cuts to Medicaid are still being sussed out on the state level, Henry Brazzell, a Paducah man who retired from working in social services, said he’s against them on principle.
“It basically just comes down to is medical care – healthcare – a right or a privilege? I think it’s a right for people,” Brazzell said.
Brian Lewis, a freelance graphic designer in western Kentucky who came to the rally, said the proposal is indicative of a “moral crisis” in America.
“The taxpayers have been subsidizing medical care for all of these people who work low-wage jobs because they don’t get benefits. They don’t get a living wage. And basically this bill is saying that a large chunk of those people no longer deserve healthcare and to me it’s just sickening,” he said.
In a Kentucky Center for Economic Policy response to the bill, the independent left-leaning think tank said that more than one in three Kentuckians are reliant on Medicaid.
KCEP also noted that potential changes to Medicaid included in the federal GOP House bill are aimed at taking coverage away from people in the program. Those include things like increased work reporting requirements, mandatory co-pays and more frequent eligibility checks, among other changes.
The proposed cuts in the House GOP bill also include reduced federal support for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which many know as food stamps – a program that helped to feed nearly 600,000 Kentuckians last year.
Dustin Pugel, KCEP’s policy director, wrote in a statement distributed Tuesday that the proposed alterations to Medicaid – if passed – would constitute the largest funding cut to both Medicaid and SNAP in history.
“The new House budget and tax plan would kick many thousands of Kentuckians off their health insurance and take food assistance away from families in an effort to offset a small portion of the cost of cutting taxes for the wealthy,” Pugel said.
Pugel went on to call the GOP plan to fund the Trump administration’s agendas “draconian” and warned it could cause major economic impacts in the Bluegrass State’s healthcare and food industries.
"As a state where more than a million people rely on these vital federal programs, Kentucky would be left sicker, hungrier and poorer by these cruel and unnecessary changes,” he said. “And this proposal threatens to weaken Kentucky’s economy by taking dollars out of rural hospitals and grocery stores to give to millionaires who mostly live elsewhere and whose wealth never trickles down to us.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie of Bowling Green chairs the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He defended the proposal in an op-ed published Sunday in The Wall Street Journal calling it “a common sense budget reconciliation bill.”
“When so many Americans who are truly in need rely on Medicaid for life-saving services, Washington can’t afford to undermine the program further by subsidizing capable adults who choose not to work,” Guthrie said. “That’s why our bill would implement sensible work requirements. Every other capable adult works to afford healthcare.”
The bill began its House mark-up process on Tuesday, with three separate committees – including Guthrie’s – needing to approve portions of the bill before the entirety of the legislation can be voted on by the Budget Committee. If it’s approved by all four committees, the bill will go to the House floor.
