If the MAGA Republicans ram through their budget this week under a “reconciliation” plan, millions will lose Medicaid coverage and, by coming at it through a back door, the bill would, in effect, maim if not kill the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. The Medicaid funds that they plan to cut make Obamacare available to millions across the country.
The AFL-CIO, the Service Employees, the Teachers, the National Partnership and other progressive groups are marshalling forces, on an emergency basis, to block passage of the disastrous budget plan this week. They set up hotlines (231-400-0602 and 866-426-2631) for people to call their lawmakers.
The CPUSA, along with many other organizations, is mobilizing its members to join the nationwide fight this week to save Medicaid from the savage cuts planned by the Trump administration and the MAGA Republicans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is desperately trying to stitch together his party’s narrow majority in the House to pass the poisonous budget bill which, at the expense of the health care of millions, includes President Trump’s “big beautiful” tax cut for the rich. In addition to killing Medicaid it slashes to almost nothing the amount of money provided for education. Johnson wants to get the measure through the House, with no Democratic support, by Memorial Day.
Pressure seen as crucial
Pressure on lawmakers is seen as crucial by health care advocates because Johnson and those immediately around him are not listening to the AFL-CIO, the Teachers, the Service Employees and many other groups. Broad majorities are against the Medicaid cuts his measure plans for the next decade: $715 billion, with another $165 billion cut from other health care programs.
Lauren Morrissey, a San Francisco Bay native who moved from there to Chicago for a university education, and now lives in Washington DC, has a story to tell about how Medicaid changed her mother Maria’s life. The question she has is: Will Congress hear it? Her story is typical of how millions of people survived thanks to that program which aids people who barely get by on a day by day basis:
“One Sunday in 2022, my mom shared with me that her abortion was covered by Medicaid…My mom had her abortion mere months before the Hyde Amendment was passed in September 1976,” banning use of Medicaid funds for abortions. “She described getting this care as the difference between ‘life or death.’ She would not die, per se, but the rest of her life would drastically change if she carried the fetus to term. Neither my mom nor her parents made enough money to cover the cost out of pocket, but Medicaid came through.
“Medicaid is the largest payer of family planning services for women with low incomes. My mom, single with my nine-month old sister living in a one-bedroom apartment with her parents and nine siblings, was able to receive abortion care, birth control, and postpartum support after she gave birth to my sister because of Medicaid. Medicaid helped my mom focus on raising my sister, hold her job, and save enough to rent her own apartment.
“This past Sunday, nearly 50 years later, my mom shared with me that she is terrified of potentially losing her health coverage from Medicaid. The program that supported her through one of the toughest times in her life may not be there to guarantee her access to long-term support services, like personal care assistance, as she gets older. If Medicaid is cut, older women like my mom will pay more for nursing home care, in-home personal care assistance, and medication.”
And if they can’t pay, they’d get tossed out onto the street, though Morrissey didn’t say that.
“My mom was able to transition into motherhood and assert bodily autonomy with the support of Medicaid. Today, she deserves to transition into retirement and ‘grandma-hood’ without the stress of wondering if she can afford to receive the care she needs to thrive in this restful time of her life. Medicaid matters for mothers everywhere–including mine.”
The Service Employees featured a similar story, from local union President Cathy Turner of Bethlehem, Pa. She drove hundreds of miles to lobby lawmakers to support Medicaid.
“Everyone should have access to affordable healthcare,” Turner told SEIU. “Many of my co-workers and fellow union members, moms who work part-time to align with school hours, rely on Medicaid and CHIP for their children’s health insurance and their own preventative care.
“The planned overhaul of this safety net would take healthcare away from children, seniors, and veterans as well as hurt healthcare professionals who care for our loved ones in hospitals, nursing homes, and through home care funded by Medicaid. Cuts would also put critical public services at risk, such as the free breakfast many kids at my middle school rely on.”
Such stories don’t matter to Johnson, the GOP House Speaker, or to Trump. Johnson wants to use the mammoth budget bill, officially called “reconciliation” to slash Medicaid, food stamps, aid to K-12 schools, labor law enforcement and other domestic programs.
Those cuts and more would pay for top GOP priorities: An eight-to-10 year $4.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and the rich—who of course are lobbying hard for it, buttressing their arguments with corporate cash via campaign contributions—and a trillion dollars for the Pentagon. Also: $135 billion more for “enforcement” along the U.S.-Mexico border, including more of Trump’s Mexican Wall.
Again, the hotlines for everyone to call their lawmakers: 231-400-0602 and 866-426-2631.
Largest source of coverage
“Medicaid is the single largest source of health care coverage in the United States, and a major source of funding for hospitals, community health centers and nursing homes,” the AFL-CIO says
“It’s Medicaid, not Medicare—that is the primary payer for 63% of nursing home residents. It’s Medicaid that pays for 42% of births each year. And it’s Medicaid that provides health care for nearly half of all children.
“The proposed cuts would tear health care away from millions of people, including kids and our most vulnerable Americans. It would raise health care and insurance costs for everyone else. And massive cuts to Medicaid would cause hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and home-health agencies to close or downsize, especially in rural and lower-income communities—causing 477,000 health care jobs to be lost in 2026 alone.
“The domino effects of cutting such a huge and vital program would be severe and wide-reaching. We would all suffer the consequences if Medicaid is harmed.” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler calls the GOP Medicaid cuts—and indeed the entire reconciliation bill—“reckless.”
Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union includes school nurses and university health care and hospital professionals, got into more detail, after an initial summary tweet on BlueSky:
“The Republican bill is all about tax cuts for the rich. Families who rely on Medicaid and SNAP will suffer. Attacking healthcare and public education will not make America great; far from it.” SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and their kids.
“The Republican proposal takes a hatchet to Americans’ access to healthcare with hundreds of billions in cuts, including the largest cut to Medicaid in history,” Weingarten elaborated, substituting the hatchet for multibillionaire Elon Musk’s chainsaw.
“Who will be hurt? Students and adults with disabilities, retirees, 40% of newborns, nearly 1.6 million veterans, more than two million children” in military families, low-wage workers and millions of Medicare beneficiaries who make so little they can receive Medicaid, too.
The SNAP cuts will come from the Republican-run House Agriculture Committee: $230 billion over 10 years. And that’s not counting lost school meals. Lose your SNAP money and your kids don’t get free lunches at school, either. That’s 42 million parents, kids, older adults and people who lose their jobs.
And Weingarten warns the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee will not only enact that monstrous tax cut for corporations and the rich, but will add another right-wing cause: Undermining the public schools which handle 90% of K-12 students with taxpayer-paid vouchers—now present in red states plus D.C.—for parents of private school kids nationwide. The child care tax credit will increase in size but not in reach, and there’s no debt relief, for college students or anyone else
“Our country should be a place where everyone has an opportunity to thrive and where a middle-class job is a reality, not just an aspiration,” Weingarten says. Tell lawmakers “we need a tax code where the wealthy pay their fair share, so critical investments in education, healthcare, retirement programs and infrastructure can be made.”
“I know this isn’t as exciting as hitting the streets to protest or as fun as posting witty things on Bluesky, but this will help millions of people who truly need your advocacy—for their families, for their communities, and for our nation to be a place where the people have the power, not the elites.”
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