Having won the presidency, the House and the U.S. Senate on Nov. 5, Republicans scored what’s referred to as a “trifecta,” where the GOP potentially now has the power to enact Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. As was the case in his first term, Trump wants to reduce federal taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, many of whom supported his campaign with millions of dollars in contributions.
On Feb. 25, the House narrowly voted to take the first step toward moving a budget plan forward that would extend the president’s 2017 tax cuts, increasing the federal deficit by up to $4.5 trillion, which the GOP wants to offset by making $2 trillion in spending cuts. Their budget proposal includes $100 billion in new spending on immigration enforcement and the military and $880 billion in cuts to federal programs. Those cuts will most likely come from Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage to more than 80 million Americans and pays the exorbitant expenses for 60 percent of all nursing home residents.
But with a razor-thin majority in the House, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson can’t afford to lose any support either from moderate members of his party or conservative budget hawks. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, who talks about growing opposition to the GOP budget plan that if enacted, would eliminate millions of Americans’ access to affordable health care.
ALEX LAWSON: You know, if we weren’t living in and seeing the other things that the Trump administration and the unelected monarch Elon Musk are doing, they wouldn’t be believable that this is what they’re proposing, but it’s what they’re proposing. It’s $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid. It’s basically an elimination of food assistance — SNAP —providing meals for seniors, for example, people with disabilities. Medicaid primarily serves seniors, children, people with disability and besides that, the majority of people work and are on Medicaid. It provides health care. That’s all it provides. You can’t live on Medicaid alone. It just provides health care. So if you take it away from people, they get sick and they die. That’s what’s being proposed.
SCOTT HARRIS: Alex, on Medicaid, there’s a lot of people across the country when they hear the term Medicaid, they think it’s a federal program just for the poor. Just for people on the other side of town if they happen to be middle class folks. But in reality, as I understand it, 60 percent of all the people in nursing homes, as they get older and they need assisted living, 60 percent of them are getting and receiving Medicaid payments to maintain themselves in these facilities. Tell us a little bit about that because that affects a lot of people. And they’re not on the other side of the tracks, if you think you’re one of the middle-class lucky folks who don’t have to engage in Medicaid.
ALEX LAWSON: Medicaid is the largest provider of long-term care in this country. For the vast majority of Americans, it’s the only provider of long-term care in this country. Long-term care, which costs on average $100,000 a year, right? One hundred thousand dollars a year.
But you remove Medicaid and you’re turning them into absolute death traps, they will close. And people who need this care, the only thing that will be able to be there for them is if their family can step up. And in so many of these cases, a family’s not equipped for somebody who’s deep in dementia. Alzheimer’s. A host of other conditions that need skilled nursing facilities. That’s what the proposal would destroy.
The only long-term care system that we have in this country, and let me also be clear, Medicaid’s not actually a long-term care system. We don’t have a long-term care system. It’s just a system that’s there. As a last resort.
I wanna say that there’s been a bit of a change, a vibe shift, a change in consciousness, an understanding about Medicaid. For a long time, it used to be true that people saw Medicaid as the weak one, you know, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and they’d be like, “Oh, well I think people will be okay with cutting Medicaid” ’cause they think it only helps other people.
I’ll tell you, I’ve been all around this country. We have an enormous amount of public opinion polling to back this up as well, but I’ve seen it with my eyes. Because so many people have now gone through the terrible, absolutely brutal, cruel process of long-term care for their parents — because the generation is taking care of their aging parents is now making decisions — the fierceness of the refusal to cut Medicaid is as high as you know, the refusal to cut Medicare.
Because more and more people understand that without Medicaid, their family members, their loved ones will die in horrible ways — kicked out of a skilled nursing facility and just brought into their house where they won’t have at all the facilities or the skills to care for them.
So when I travel around the country, I never hesitate to center Medicaid and tell people the Republicans are attacking Medicaid. And four out of five Americans say clearly, “Hands off our Medicaid.” Because people understand that along with Social Security, Medicare, yes, Medicaid and a host of these other programs, including food assistance, for some seniors, Meals on Wheels is the only interaction that a person will get.
And the cruelty of taking this away is only multiplied. It’s massively multiplied when you realize why they’re doing it. They’re going to kill people. They’re going to harm people, seniors, people with disabilities, and yes, millions of children who will become sicker. All so that they can give tax handouts to billionaires like Elon Musk. That’s the whole goal.
And the thing is, not only the frontliners, but a lot of others. I mean, Mike Johnson, the speaker himself. You know what percentage of people in his district get their healthcare from Medicaid? Twenty-three percent! A quarter of his constituents. He is gonna steal their healthcare.
If we can just let people know, the people will demand that they keep their hands off of Medicaid and we’ll have put sand in the gears. We won’t have stopped it because they will come back with another cruel and stupid proposal.
It’ll be a struggle and a battle for a long time. But the strategy that we need to keep in mind: Sand in the gears hasten buyer’s remorse. We need to slow everything down and
open the people’s eyes to what is actually happening here, which is a full-scale looting of America by billionaires.
For more information visit Social Security Works at socialsecurityworks.org.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Alex Lawson (25:17) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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