Medicaid cuts will cost everyone

To the Editor:

You would almost have to be living under a rock to have missed the passage of the new budget bill — the “Big Beautiful Bill” — by the House of Representatives. This bill contains huge cuts to programs that help us stay healthy and live well, one of which is Medicaid. If you think you won’t be affected by cuts to Medicaid, think again.

Cuts to Medicaid alone would cause 13.7 million people to become uninsured. It will also raise costs and jeopardize care for many who manage to keep their health coverage. When health care funding is restricted, hospitals face financial difficulties, especially rural hospitals, which may be at risk of shutting down departments, including obstetrics care, or closing entirely. Cuts to Medicaid would force nursing homes and other long term care facilities to close, because 7 out of 10 patients in these facilities are covered by Medicaid. Medicaid cuts can also cause providers to limit services or leave the area, especially pediatricians, since children make up almost half of the Medicaid population. When providers leave, even people who have other types of health insurance lose access to care.

One myth that is perpetuated to support these cuts is that able bodied people who don’t work collect Medicaid. In fact, 92 percent of people who receive Medicaid are already working full or part time, or they are not working because they are a caregiver, have an illness or disability, or are attending school. Work requirements also lead to coverage losses among people who cannot navigate complex work-reporting and verification systems, people who can’t navigate the exemption process, and people who have been laid off or are otherwise unemployed, often temporarily. Work requirements cut coverage, and they do not increase employment.

In other words, if you are a human being, you will be affected by cuts to Medicaid funding. Your provider may leave, or cut back on the care they provide. Your grandmother may be evicted from her long term care facility, or the facility itself could be forced to close. You may be forced to quit your job to care for her. Health care professionals will lose their jobs, including nurses and auxiliary staff. Since healthcare employs so many people in this area, other businesses will take a hit, such as restaurants, stores, recreational facilities, to name a few. 

But the biggest tragedy of cutting Medicaid funding is that people will die. We already lose 70,000 fellow Americans a year because they don’t make it to a doctor in time. Now, with funding so drastically cut, we will lose many more. That is the reality we are facing.

If you care about the health of children and the elderly, if you care about people being able to work in the fulfilling field of health care, if you care about who will have to care for your elderly parents or disabled siblings after nursing homes close, if you care about your friends and neighbors becoming sickly, frail, and dying from lack of access to health care, please call your congressional representative or senators. Many lives may depend on it. 

Cassandra Bishop

Tomahawk