Protestors demand accountability from congressional Republicans in Morgantown

Yahoo

19-03-2025

MORGANTOWN — Constituents of Rep. Riley Moore and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito demanded their legislators protect Medicaid and Medicare in a pair of protests outside their Morgantown offices Monday.
Rep. Moore voted for a 10-year budget blueprint in the House of Representatives which cuts $800 billion from the federal budget, removing funding for government services. To make the math work, the government will have to decide what services to end. The Medicaid budget is $880 billion. The blueprint is now in the Senate for consideration.
At the same time, Congress will consider collecting trillions less in funding for services provided by the federal government. The blueprint is a separate bill from one recently signed by President Donald Trump to keep the government open.
'Right now, just Medicaid is the insurance available to 40% of our children, at least 40% nationally and it might be higher in West Virginia,' Cynthia Fox, a licensed physical therapist with a high portion of patients on Medicaid, said. 'It is the largest portion of funding for people who have to reside in a nursing home because their family can no longer care for them at home.'
Fox added most people don't realize private insurance and Medicaid both pay for patients to go to a nursing home for rehabilitative purposes which once completed, the patient is discharged and sent home. However, if an individual has a parent with dementia and needs to become a permanent resident in a nursing home, Medicaid will pay for that so long as the person qualifies. Cut to Medicaid would also result in nursing homes from for-profit companies who accept Medicaid pulling up stakes and leaving, Fox said, removing a care option from people who can afford private nursing care.
Fox fears even if Medicaid funding isn't completely lost, insufficient funding will lead to insufficient care.
'Half of our budget in West Virginia is federally funded,' Shayla Klein, secretary for Mountaineers Indivisible, said. 'Riley Moore knows this. He was the former treasurer. He's our representative and he wants to cut funding for our federal programs. Doing any cuts to Medicaid would devastate West Virginia.'
Klein's father lost his job in the steel industry during a downturn around 2011. She said her family never recovered from that. As a result, Klein herself was on Medicaid for eight years. Fortunately, due to government-funded programs like the Promise Scholarship, Medicaid and other forms of social assistance, Klein was able to lift herself up out of being on Medicaid. But her parents are still on it, she said.
'There's so many of us on Medicaid,' she said. 'If you go to the grocery store, if you go to your son's football game, you look right, you look to your left. One of you is on Medicaid.'
Klein and a few others with Medicaid experiences to share went into Moore's office to discuss his actions with one of his staff members. Klein said the staff member was very receptive. While Klein and three others were inside Moore's office, Cassandra Whisenant, media relations for Mountaineers Indivisible, said a man approached and threatened to call police and start towing cars. The protest had relocated to the sidewalk after initially being told to leave the parking lot outside Moore's office.
'That's our First Amendment rights,' Cindy Peymann, a dental hygienist, said. 'There's nowhere in this parking lot that tells me not to park here or to [not] protest about what is significantly going to impact West Virginians.'
Peymann herself is on Medicaid, after suffering massive rotator cuff tears that forced her to stop working.
Moore's communications director, Walter Smoloski, said he had no idea who told them to leave but it was not anyone with the congressman's office. The property owner of Moore's office is Suburban Lanes Inc., according to tax records.
'I appreciate my constituents coming and engaging with staff today to share their concerns, just as I appreciate the conversations and feedback I've gotten from various individuals across the district,' Moore said. 'My team held an hour-long meeting with the protestors today. We are always happy to talk.'
After dispersing, Klein and a few others went to Sen. Capito's office next. There, almost 50 people gathered to demand she protect Medicaid and Medicare. However, Capito's office told her constituents they had to set up an appointment in order to be heard. Mindy Holcomb, a health care organizer with West Virginia Citizen Action, said they had let the Senator's office know ahead of time they would be coming. Although Holcomb has spoken directly with Moore's healthcare policy advisor, Dana Richter, Holcomb and several of the other protestors wanted Capito, and Moore by extension, to hear their concerns at a town hall.
NBC News reported the chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee advised Congressional Republicans to avoid town halls after angry attendees confronted lawmakers at a series of GOP town halls. So far, the only Republicans brave enough to do so have been Rep. Harriet Hageman from Wyoming and Rep. Chuck Edwards from North Carolina.
'Our representatives are voted into office by us,' Holcomb said. 'They owe us and they work for us, so they owe us some accountability for their votes. They don't work for Elon Musk and they don't work for the president. They work for the people of West Virginia and they should be held accountable to the people of West Virginia and answer the questions they have.'