I’m seeing fellow liberals getting upset because Nebraska Republican Don Bacon is supposedly suggesting cutting $500 billion from Medicaid, like that’s his idea or something.
When actually, Bacon is saying he won’t accept more than $500 billion in cuts, as other Republicans are putting closer to $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid on the table.
Sure, Bacon could say, no cuts.
We also could have worked a little harder and a lot smarter to elect Kamala Harris and a Democratic Congress last fall.
“As the GOP drafts their devastating budget, one thing remains true: Republicans in Congress want to make the largest Medicaid cuts in history to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans,” said Brad Woodhouse, the president of Protect Our Care, one of the good guys here, so I won’t bust their chops.
Because he’s right on what’s going on here. Republicans are taking the chain saw to the safety net to be able to give more money to rich people.
Medicaid provides healthcare to more than 70 million Americans, including low-income seniors, children, veterans, people with serious disabilities, workers who don’t get coverage through their jobs, and people who take care of their children or elderly parents.
We could just implement a system of universal healthcare and cover everybody the way members of Congress get full coverage paid for by us, but then we wouldn’t be the only industrialized country on earth without universal healthcare.
So, we fight for the watered-down stuff that we have, and are about to lose.
“Whether it’s a trillion dollars, half a trillion, or hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts, no member of Congress can justify ripping health care away from some of the most vulnerable Americans to give tax breaks to the wealthy. Not one dollar should be cut from Medicaid to pay for one dollar of tax breaks for the rich,” Woodhouse said.
It’s a losing battle that we’re fighting here.
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Chris Graham
