Medicaid recipients meet with lawmakers to protest prospect of losing coverage
Ahead of action this week on Congressional legislation that could provide the first hard details on proposed cuts to Medicaid, Wisconsin lawmakers are urging constituents to push back against cutting health care coverage.
'One of the most powerful things we can do right now is to elevate stories and talk about how compelling a need there is for robust investment in the Medicaid program,' Sen. Tammy Baldwin told a group of Medicaid recipients at a roundtable discussion in Madison on Friday.
Republicans in Congress are trying to extend federal tax cuts enacted in 2017, during President Donald Trump's first term. Unless renewed, the 2017 tax cuts will expire at the end of 2025.
Congressional Republicans want to offset $4.5 trillion that extending the 2017 tax cuts will add to the federal deficit over 10 years. Based on their original blueprint, Medicaid has been in the spotlight as a likely target, and this week GOP leaders in the U.S. House are expected to release their first concrete proposals.
Medicaid covers about 1.3 million Wisconsin residents — roughly one in five people in the state, according to the state Department of Health Services (DHS). Those include nearly 900,000 low-income people who have primary health care and hospital services though BadgerCare Plus.
More than 260,000 people who are elderly, blind, or have other disabilities have coverage through Medicaid, including for long-term care in nursing homes or in their own homes or the community. And another 244,000 Wisconsinites have Medicaid coverage through a variety of other special programs.
Extending the 2017 tax cuts will benefit the richest 1% of the population most, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found.
'In order to give tax breaks for the rich, what do they want to cut? Medicaid. It's one of the biggest targets,' Baldwin, a Democrat, told participants in the Madison roundtable. 'So from the folks who are most vulnerable, to transfer money to those who are billionaires and millionaires and multi-millionaires — it is criminal in my mind. It's immoral.'
Baldwin's event was one of two held Friday to highlight Medicaid's importance in Wisconsin. In Eau Claire, state Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) convened a discussion that included providers and Medicaid recipients.
Emerson's discussion was joined via Zoom by Chiquita Brooks-LaSure administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under former President Joe Biden
'These attacks on the Medicaid program can be devastating if they go through,' Brooks-LaSure told the Wisconsin Examiner in a phone interview. 'Not just for the millions of low-income people who need help, not just for the millions of middle-class families who depend on Medicaid — particularly for nursing home care, care in the home to keep you out of the nursing home, and children with special needs, whether it be autism services, whether it be developmental disabilities or physical disabilities.'
The existence of Medicaid helps the overall health care economy in the long run, Brooks-LaSure said.
Under federal law, hospitals must ensure that patients who show up in their emergency rooms are stable before they leave. But if a person's care isn't covered, 'the entire health care system pays for that.'
Medicaid recipients who met with Baldwin described their anxiety over the prospect of losing coverage.
For Laurel Burns, who was born with no arms, Medicaid has enabled her to have health care for herself and for her two sons, now teens, whom she's raised as a single mother after their father left.
'Being disabled has been a struggle my whole life. It's like every twist and turn is up a steep hill,' Burns told Baldwin. Medicaid support, however, has enabled her to have health care at home, including needed assistance with grocery shopping and housekeeping.
She has been able to get a college degree and landed a part-time job working for an insurance agent.
'I would love to work full time, but the job market and being disabled is really difficult to navigate,' Burns said. 'With all these cuts and threats to the program, it's really scary for somebody like me who doesn't have a large family.'
Megan Hufton, the single mother of two teenage boys who have autism and don't speak, said that in addition to the support Medicaid has provided her sons as part of the program's disability services, schools get Medicaid support to help pay for services such as occupational therapy. 'I'm very nervous about the future,' Hufton said.
Baldwin's discussion was held at Common Threads, a Medicaid-funded agency in Madison that provides mental health, rehab and alternative education services.
Liv Lacayo, who works with Common Threads clients and their families, said Medicaid enables them to get routine care so they don't have to use emergency services as they might have to otherwise.
Without Medicaid, she said, she worries that families would be struggling for support.
Brett Maki, who must use a motorized wheelchair to get around, said Medicaid has made it possible for him to live independently, getting daily help with cooking, cleaning and laundry — 'all of the basic necessities that I would need to live my life to the fullest.'
Without that, 'I don't even want to think about what that means,' he said.
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