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Washington Post
3 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
Republicans worry Medicaid cuts would hurt their communities, poll finds
More than 4 in 10 Republicans worried significant cuts to Medicaid would hurt health-care providers in their communities and lead to people losing insurance, according to a KFF poll released Friday. The findings illustrate the political perils of upending the public health insurance program as Senate Republicans feud over Medicaid cuts. As they face pressure to slash spending to finance President Donald Trump's sweeping tax and immigration legislation, they risk alienating their own supporters who depend on the program. While most Medicaid enrollees identified as Democrats or independents, 27 percent said they are Republican, including 19 percent who identified as supporters of Trump's Make America Great Again movement. About 3 in 4 GOP Medicaid recipients were worried federal cuts to the program would hurt their ability to receive and pay for health care for themselves and their families, the poll found. Those concerns are not limited to people enrolled in the program. Nearly a third of all Republicans and 26 percent of MAGA Republicans had the same worries about their own access to health care if Medicaid is cut, the survey showed. While Democrats and independents were far more likely to express concerns, the level of worry among Republicans reflects Medicaid's appeal across party lines. 'Medicaid is really a popular program, and a large majority of Americans do not want to see decreases in spending,' said Liz Hamel, director of public opinion and survey research at KFF, a health policy research organization. 'These findings reflect that many people, whether or not they rely on Medicaid, see it as vital to their communities.' Medicaid is the nation's largest public health insurer, serving poor families, people with disabilities and nursing home residents, among others. It covers around one in five Americans, many of them in states and districts represented by GOP lawmakers. It also provides a crucial line of revenue for health-care providers such as rural hospitals. Half of rural adults, including 37 percent of rural Republicans, were worried the cuts could affect their access to care, the poll found. They were even more worried about health care in their communities. Almost every Democrat and half of Republicans in rural areas worried Medicaid cuts would negatively impact their local hospitals, nursing homes and other providers. Edwin Park, a health policy researcher at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy, said those findings about rural concerns are not surprising. 'We've done research showing that both children and non-elderly adults in rural communities disproportionately rely on Medicaid,' he said. 'And these are areas that tend to vote Republican and supported President Trump.' The poll was conducted May 5 through May 26 and included 2,539 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The margin was slightly higher for findings about Republicans. Senate Republicans wrestled this week over how deeply to cut Medicaid as they strive to pass their own version of a bill to extend Trump's tax cuts and reduce other spending by Independence Day. The version passed by the House achieves nearly $800 billion in savings, primarily by requiring childless adults with low incomes to prove they are working, limiting a tax used by states to receive increased federal Medicaid funds and canceling new regulations proposed by the Biden administration to streamline enrollment. About 7.8 million fewer people would be insured within a decade because of Medicaid changes in the House legislation, according to projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Senate aims to revise the House legislation, but Republicans are engaged in hot debate over whether to contract or expand the Medicaid cuts. Senate Republicans, who hold a slim majority, can afford to lose only three of their members if all Democrats oppose the bill as expected. They're already likely to lose the vote of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who has raised concerns about the cost of a bill the CBO estimates would add $3 trillion to the national debt. Most Republican senators are on board with adding work requirements to Medicaid, a measure polling has found most Americans favor. That includes senators who have expressed the most concern about Medicaid cuts, such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). But there is growing concern around another provision in the House bill aimed at limiting the taxes states impose on hospitals and other Medicaid providers as backdoor way of increasing federal Medicaid payments. States pass the tax back to providers in the form of higher Medicaid payments, which are then partially matched by the federal government. 'I'm concerned about the impact on rural hospitals and how it all would work with a provider tax,' Collins told The Post this week. Hawley said 'it would hurt rural hospitals in my state.' Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia), whose state has one of the highest Medicaid populations in the country, worried this week about letting provider taxes 'get undermined,' according to Punchbowl News. And in an April floor speech, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said he's focused on making sure 'the hospitals have the capability and the revenues necessary to provide the services the community needs — Medicaid is a component of that.' Other Republican senators this week defended cuts to Medicaid, arguing the program would still be available to those most in need. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) sparked an uproar last week after she flippantly replied 'Well, we all are going to die' to a town hall attendee who shouted people would die if they lose Medicaid coverage.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Bellevue, WA dad pleads for help solving daughter's death on UC Santa Barbara campus
The Brief A Bellevue father is searching for answers after his teen daughter's death, as police are no closer to solving her case months later. Liz Hamel, 18, was found unconscious near a dorm on the UC Santa Barbara campus on Valentine's Day, and died days later. SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - A Bellevue father is searching for answers after his teen daughter's death in California, with police no closer to solving her case months later. The backstory Liz Hamel, 18, was found unconscious near a dorm on the UC Santa Barbara campus on Valentine's Day (February 14). She died days later. Hamel's father, Alain, took part in a press conference on Wednesday, begging for help from students that may know what happened that night. "I shouldn't be standing here, I should be at home grieving my daughter, entrusting the institutions responsible to this investigation, but the academic quarter is coming to an end, people are leaving, people's memories fade," said Alain Hamel. Hamel, along with an attorney and investigator, showed an image of a young man that was with Liz on the night of there death. A short time after they left a restaurant, Liz was allegedly found unconscious, as if she fell from a balcony on the other side of campus where she lives. Police are still investigating, but the Bellevue teen's family and law enforcement are now split on how the investigation is unfolding. The Source Information in this story came from FOX 11 Los Angeles, Claytor Investigations and FOX 13 Seattle reporting. Underwater volcano poised to erupt off OR coast, Seattle scientists say Teen in custody for stabbing mother's boyfriend, Pierce County deputies say Rumors claim Seattle ports are 'dead'. Here's the truth Idaho judge slams Bryan Kohberger's 'hollow' attempt to dodge death penalty Houdini Fly Hunt launched in WA, OR. Here's what to do if you spot one To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter. Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news.
Scientific American
30-04-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
The Brainwashing Campaign That Is Measles Misinformation
Opinion 4 min read A shameful mass propaganda campaign is unfolding in the U.S., one that will make millions of kids needlessly sick with measles By A long-running nationwide brainwashing campaign, conducted in plain sight, now comes to its deadly culmination. The predictable consequence—reviving a preventable childhood disease in the U.S.—is at hand. With two children dead in Texas, an adult dead in New Mexico, and nearly 900 confirmed cases of measles across 25 states, we are now at risk of a preventable, dangerous disease becoming endemic once more within a generation. A terrifically infectious disease, measles requires roughly 95 percent of people being vaccinated to stop its spread, and the U.S. has been below that since 2022. Why is this happening? An April poll on measles beliefs from the health policy-centered Kaiser Family Foundation tells us. One quarter of the 1,380 people surveyed believe the false notion that the measles vaccine causes autism. Some 19 percent mistakenly believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the deadly virus it prevents. That's simply untrue. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. This is a shameful, mass propaganda campaign, unfolding in real time, championed by our top health officia l, a lawyer who recently announced a pointless study into the causes of autism. This propaganda exercise, headed by an unqualified anti-vaxxer, was conjured simply to raise questions about vaccines. The poll makes clear who this noise is aimed at: Republican voters, bidding to undermine their trust in science and government in ways familiar since COVID. We are on the brink of an epidemic, one that could make millions of people sick with measles each year, and this is all being done for political and personal gain, with children as the collateral damage. The tanning booth cabal broadcasting this nonsense has helped one in three U.S. adults report they have now heard the falsehood that the measles vaccine is more dangerous than the disease, almost twice as many as said the same a year earlier. And people who identify as Republican are eating this up. 'We see that trust overall has fallen, but that's really been driven by declining trust in government sources of health information among Republicans,' says Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at KFF. 'And that's whether you ask the question about information on COVID-19, or information on vaccines, or just to make the right recommendations on health care.' Why undermine public trust in health recommendations? It's good politics, Trump and his supporters have found, aimed at driving the country back to the gilded age. Public health, ensuring safe drugs and food, are public goods largely directed by federal agencies. If your goal is dismantling the federal government, making people think those (admittedly far-from-perfect) health agencies are lying about vaccines is a great place to start undoing the progressive era. The partisan differences are stark, making clear who is getting this message. Only half of self-declared Republicans in the poll know that measles cases are up this year compared to recent years. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats say they know the same. One third of Republicans say it is 'definitely' or 'probably true' that the measles vaccine, typically given in childhood in a combination with mumps and rubella, has been proven to cause autism, compared to 10 percent of Democrats. Why pretend there isn't a political brainwashing experiment going on? The Trump administration's loudest voice on vaccines is (somehow) HHS chief Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who after tepidly endorsing the MMR shot in the Texas outbreak ('stoking fury among his supporters,' according to NPR), pivoted to doubting their safety and embraced a Texas doctor who treated kids while reportedly ill with measles. His autism study move seems aimed at scaring parents into not vaccinating their kids by laundering the bogus link back to the syndrome into the news. None of this is subtle. An April Journal for the Anthropology of North America study, looking at distrust for the government among Evangelical Christians in Oregon, nicely lays out how these kinds of views were transmitted to Republican voters in the COVID pandemic. '[I]ndividuals we met invoked well-worn and pervasive far-right and/or Christian conspiracy theories promulgated by right-wing media,' found the anthropologists. A pastor counseled people to eschew vaccines out of Christian duty to demonstrate faith in God. A career nurse 'read reports of how the COVID-19 vaccine made people sicker than the virus itself,' and stopped endorsing vaccines for kids. To some, 'the COVID-19 vaccine symbolized everything wrong and threatening' about 'big government' and 'big medicine", the study in Oregon found. Such conspiratorial thinking is now standard stuff in our politics. Ever since President Donald Trump first botched the handling of COVID in 2020, when his administration fumbled the rollout of vaccines, the Republican Party has turned against inoculations. Partly, this turn against science was meant to inoculate Trump from the political cos t of raising hopes of the pandemic ending ' by Easter ' in its first year. The subsequent resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 cases ahead of the 2020 election led to attacks on then NIAID chief Anthony Fauci, as a political scapegoating strategy. In 2024 Trump brought RFK, Jr. (whom he once accused of being a 'fake' anti-vaxxer) onto his campaign precisely for his anti–medical establishment credentials. Kennedy's views, steadily peddled on right-wing outlets, attracted measles-vaccine-doubting voters. It was a classic case of 'If you can't beat 'em on lying about vaccines, give him control of the nation's public health apparatus.' The propaganda is effective enough that the parents of one girl who died of measles in Texas told the rabidly anti-vaxx group Children's Health Defense (which was founded and until recently chaired by RFK, Jr.) that they still opposed vaccinations even after this preventable tragedy. In stomach-turning fashion, the group turned the family's statements into a propaganda video against vaccines. For the politicians and the grifters who pump out this dangerous dishonesty, these deaths don't matter, so long as they get the votes. For everyone else, the deadly spread of measles is the dismal future they now promise our kids.
