Over 300 groups urge Senate GOP to reject Medicaid cuts
Hundreds of healthcare professional associations, civil rights nonprofits and policy groups have signed an open letter urging Republicans in the Senate to reject cuts to Medicaid. A proposed budget bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives calls for $2 trillion in cuts, with hundreds of billions expected to be eliminated from funds used for state Medicaid programs.
The letter, addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), was sent by a group called Families USA, with the undersigned including major nonprofits like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the NAACP.
In it, the collective of over 300 organizations called the proposal by the House “catastrophic” and said it would “shred our nation’s social safety net.” They called the cuts a “betrayal of the very voters” who elected Republicans to lower the cost of living.
“No matter how cuts to Medicaid are framed, the end result would be devastating to American families and communities in every state,” they wrote. “Medicaid is already a lean program; the cuts required by the House budget resolution would blow a hole in state budgets, forcing them to offset financial losses by either raising taxes, dropping people from coverage, eliminating critical health services, or cutting payments that support rural hospitals, community clinics, nursing homes and other providers—delaying care and driving up costs for everyone.”
The letter comes just days after a report from the Commonwealth Fund warned that cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits would be perilous to state economies, potentially causing 1 million people to lose their jobs across all sectors of the economy. The analysis also concluded that the resulting reduction in consumer spending would outweigh any savings.
Families USA expresses similar fears but adds that cuts to the healthcare program would also be broadly unpopular.
“New polling shows that the House budget bill is entirely out of step with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support Medicaid: Almost 75% of people across the political spectrum affirm that Medicaid is important to their community, and over 80% want to maintain or even increase current funding for Medicaid,” it wrote in the letter.
“We urge the Senate not to take up the House’s budget bill and instead commit to protecting Medicaid and the other critical healthcare programs on which your constituents rely for their health and well-being,” the undersigned added.
The full letter is available here.
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.