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By Dustin Granger, former candidate for Louisiana State Treasurer
When I think about Medicaid, I think about my grandmother.
She passed away with no money to her name. But she had Healthy Louisiana, which is our version of Medicaid. That gave her a little peace at the end. It wasn’t perfect. She spent her last days crammed in a nursing home room with three other sick people. But she had care. Without Healthy Louisiana, I don’t know what would have happened to her.
She wasn’t just someone’s wife. She raised a family. She cared for veterans. She ran a sewing shop to bring in extra income. She held everything together. She deserved better than what she got. And now they want to take even that away from the rest of us.
Republicans in Congress are pushing a budget that would cut over one trillion dollars from Medicaid. That’s not a typo. A trillion. In Louisiana, it means over 200,000 people will lose access to care. And most people don’t even realize the coverage they have comes from Medicaid. Whether it’s for a child, a parent, a small business owner or a disabled loved one, this is the program they are targeting.
The people on Healthy Louisiana are not freeloaders. They are workers. They are caretakers. They are small business owners and farmers. They are people who don’t get insurance through work, or who are too old or sick to keep working. They are doing their best in a rigged economy. And for many of them, this is the only health care option they have.
The lies from Republican leaders like Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise, Julia Letlow, John Kennedy and Senator Bill Cassidy are deliberate. They say Medicaid is being abused by able-bodied people. But that makes no sense. If someone is healthy, they aren’t costing Medicaid anything. The only way to save money in this system is by denying care to the people who are actually sick.
This program is not a check in the mail. It reimburses hospitals and clinics after people get care. So when Republicans talk about cutting billions of dollars, what they are really talking about is taking that money away from Louisiana families. They are taking away surgeries. They are taking away prescriptions. They are taking away nursing beds. And they are doing it to hand out more permanent tax cuts to the richest people in the country.
It is theft in plain sight.
Rural Louisiana will be hit the hardest. Right now, 33 rural hospitals across our state are in danger of closing. These hospitals are barely staying open as it is. They serve farmers, seasonal workers and small towns where Medicaid is the main source of insurance. If these hospitals go under, the local economy goes with them.
And even if you don’t use Medicaid, you’re not safe. When people can’t get preventive care, they end up in the emergency room. That costs ten times more. And the law requires hospitals to treat them, whether they can pay or not. That means higher premiums for everyone else. Including people with private insurance.
This is not just about public health. It’s bad economics. Medicaid is a direct injection of money into local economies. It supports hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and jobs. It keeps people healthy enough to work and take care of their families. Cutting it is not just cruel. It is reckless.
And it’s not just Medicaid on the chopping block. This is about control. This is about tearing down every public system that protects ordinary people. That includes Medicare, Social Security, public schools and even roads and water systems. Republicans want to privatize it all so corporations can take it over and make money off of it. They want to make you pay more for less.
They are already making it harder to apply for care. They’re putting up red tape and paperwork traps so that even people who qualify will get kicked off or give up trying. It’s a strategy designed to break the system from the inside and then blame the victims.
And then there’s Senator Cassidy, who used to be a doctor. He took an oath to do no harm. But now he is helping lead the charge to destroy the very programs he used to support. He was a Democrat once. He claimed to believe in the safety net. But that is long gone.
Let’s not forget that Cassidy helped try to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. If he had succeeded, millions of people would have lost coverage just before the pandemic. He was fine with that. He would have let people die if it meant another tax cut for donors.
Now he’s trying to prove he’s MAGA enough by pushing even more cuts. He’s not the only one. But he’s one of the worst, because he knows better. And he still does it anyway.
I don’t know what it says about a country where the people in charge see the poor, the sick and the elderly as disposable. But I know what it says about us if we let them win.
We’ve worked our whole lives. We pay taxes. We show up. We do our part. And we’re just asking for a basic guarantee that when we get sick, we won’t be left to suffer alone.
Every other developed country has figured this out. They provide care to everyone. It costs them less. Their people live longer. They don’t tie care to jobs or paperwork or profit. And they look at us like we’ve lost our minds.
They’re right to wonder what happened to us.
I still remember my grandmother’s last days. She deserved better. So does everyone else who’s trying to hold on in a system that keeps taking from those who have the least to give.
This fight is about more than a budget. It’s about what kind of country we are.
If you’ve ever needed care. If someone you love has. If you’re one illness or one accident away from disaster. Then you already know what’s at stake.
Say it with me: No more.
We want change.
— Dustin Granger Former candidate for Louisiana State Treasurer
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