This is it: the details of Republicans’ budget reconciliation package are almost finalized; it passed the U.S. House Budget Committee earlier this week, and is being considered by the Rules Committee as we speak.

As we expected, despite their lip service against cuts to Medicaid, the proposed legislation still includes at least $715 billion in cuts to health care programs, mostly impacting Medicaid.

If passed and signed into law by President Trump, this bill will slash Medicaid and other health programs, and will strip health insurance coverage from 13.7 million people.

The consequences of this legislation would be far-reaching and catastrophic:

• Millions of patients will be forced to delay care, seeking it through emergency rooms when they are sicker, or in the worst cases, until it is too late and they may die.
• Loss of Medicaid dollars will hurt hospital budgets, leading to major job cuts, worse staffing, service cuts, and even hospital closures — particularly in rural areas. Remaining hospitals and their emergency departments will be even more overwhelmed.
• This will drive up health care costs across the system and push more families into medical debt and bankruptcy, worsening the financial strain already felt by millions in our broken for-profit health care system.

The provisions of this bill are not small reforms to weed out waste, fraud, or abuse, as the Republicans claim — they’re meant to gut working-class people’s health care just to pay for trillions of dollars in tax giveaways to the richest people in the world. This comes on the heels of this administration's shameful attack on federal workers. It’s a robbery, and we’re running out of time to stop it.

This is our chance to stop the budget bill in the House: Please make a call (even if you already have) to your member of Congress at 202-978-5357 and urge them to vote NO on these devastating cuts!

Feel free to follow our suggested script:

Hi, my name is _______. I am a constituent and I’m a nurse/other health care worker/patient/Medicaid recipient/ally. I’m calling today to urge you to oppose Republicans’ budget reconciliation package, which includes at least $715 billion in cuts to health care programs like Medicaid. Cuts to Medicaid would take away people’s health care and lead to hospital closures, especially in rural areas, hurting entire communities. This is unacceptable and inhumane. I urge you to vote NO on this bill and any cuts to Medicaid.

Let’s flood our elected officials’ offices with calls today before they vote to advance this harmful budget later this week. Thank you for keeping up the fight with us!

In solidarity,

Nurses' Campaign to Win Medicare for All