Trump Budget Makes Savage Cuts to Medicaid, Safety Net Programs
Budget Would Radically Restructure Medicaid, Make Even Deeper Cuts than GOP Repeal Bill
The following is a statement by Margarida Jorge and Ethan Rome, co-directors of Health Care for America Now (HCAN), on President Trump’s budget proposal:
“The President’s budget is a blueprint for disaster for America’s families. It savages Medicaid with almost $1.5 trillion in cuts to the health care of 74 million Americans and slashes vital services like Meals on Wheels and nutrition assistance. Coupled with a tax plan that will literally give trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the very wealthy and big corporations, this budget proposal is both unconscionable and unsustainable.
“The irreparable damage to health care is especially extreme. President Trump would take away Medicaid expansion coverage from 14 million people, and radically restructure the federal funding for the program to starve it over the years, forcing cuts in eligibility and benefits and blowing enormous holes in state budgets. This irresponsible attack on Medicaid includes the $880 billion cut in the House Republican repeal bill and an additional $610 billion in cuts (including slashing the Children’s Health Insurance Program), in part by suppressing the growth rates for Medicaid, even though Medicaid already provides health care at lower costs.
“Instead of cutting Medicaid, we should be building on America’s health care programs to guarantee quality, affordable health care for everyone, and that includes Planned Parenthood, the bedrock of women’s health services in America.”
Perhaps President Trump doesn’t understand the role Medicaid plays. But it’s huge. Medicaid provides coverage to 74 million people – one in four Americans, including 30 million children. It pays for half the births in the United States, 75% of all family planning services and 50% of long-term care. Medicaid also costs far less per beneficiary than either Medicare or private health insurance, and its costs have been rising more slowly.
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Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is the national grassroots coalition that ran a $60 million five-and-a-half year campaign from 2008-2013 to pass, protect, and promote the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and protect Medicare and Medicaid. HCAN has come back together to fight the Republicans’ all-out effort to take away America’s health care and put people at the mercy of the health insurance companies again.
