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John,
They’ve finally said it explicitly: the incoming Trump administration is planning on making drastic cuts to Medicaid.
The head of the proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), Elon Musk, has said that the proposed $2 trillion budget cuts he plans to implement will involve some temporary hardship. But his co-chair, Vivek Ramaswamy made it clear that Medicaid and Medicare are on the chopping block in a recent interview with CNBC:1,2
“You look at the way in which that money is being spent through Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security… There are hundreds of billions of dollars of savings to extract just from basic program integrity measures…. The executive branch has no obligation to send out a payment if it is wasteful….”
That’s their plan; to call Medicaid payments to states wasteful, cutting off millions of people from health care access. Just look at this headline from a local Virginia paper:3
These states have laws in place now to drop millions of poor people from Medicaid automatically if the federal government reduces its contribution to states for their coverage.
Take action now. Send a direct message to Congress telling them to reject cuts to Medicaid.
“We can’t just keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them…. We ought to look at whether we’re doing [Medicaid] the right way. Block grants make a lot of sense.” -Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)4
Block-granting Medicaid would do devastating, likely irreparable damage―a cut to Medicaid spending that would place almost 80 million people at risk (that’s how many, from babies to retirees, depend on Medicaid).5 And it would all be done to pay for an extension of the Trump-GOP tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans while everyone else continues to struggle.
While accepting his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, Martin Luther King, Jr. said:6
“Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.’”
America cannot afford to leave the most vulnerable in our society behind. Send a message to Congress, demanding they reject any and all cuts to Medicaid.
Thank you for all you do,
Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action
1 Elon Musk asks voters to brace for economic 'hardship,' deep spending cuts in potential Trump Cabinet role
2 CNBC Transcript: Exclusive: DOGE Co-Lead, Author, and Former U.S. Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Speaks with CNBC’s Eamon Javers and Morgan Brennan Live from the CNBC CFO Council Summit in Washington, DC Today
3 9 states, including Virginia, poised to end coverage for millions if Trump cuts Medicaid funding
4 Show Their Hand: Draconian Medicaid Cuts on the Agenda for Next Year
5 August 2024 Medicaid & CHIP Enrollment Data Highlights
6 Top Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Poverty
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