The New York Times recently ran several articles on Medicaid and the cost of health care under the Republican’s proposed Trump Care program. Trump himself has called the Republican ACA “mean.” “Mean” is not quite the word. Mean would be calling Medicaid patients “losers” and “takers” in the waiting room. Trump Care is not mean. It is predatory.
Republican Trump Care is about transferring more wealth to the richest Americans and to corporations. It will give Americans earning over $1 million a tax cut of $54,000. The cost of that gift is shrinking Medicaid and eliminating health insurance for 23 million people.
To understand what the planned reductions in Medicaid will do, you have to understand what Medicaid does at present.
One in five Americans (74 million people) depends on Medicaid.
Medicaid covers more than a third of American children.
Medicaid pays for half of all births in the United States.
Medicaid covers almost two-thirds of nursing home residents, many of whom were middle class.
The biggest share of Medicaid costs are for the elderly and disabled.
In the face of the impact that the repeal of the ACA and sharp reductions in Medicaid will have on them, working class and middle class Americans continue to vote against their own best interests and in favor of giving ever more of their money away to the top one per cent. It may take the disaster that will surely follow on the heels of Trump Care and the gutting of Medicaid to drive home the folly of voting against one’s self.
It has been said that “it takes a village.” It takes a unified effort to create a nation based on equality, justice and democracy and to maintain it. It may take an economic and health care cataclysm to save that nation. America’s working class and middle class seem unable to grasp the danger they are in until it overtakes them. If that is the case, the sooner it overtakes them the sooner we can work to remedy our ills.
Submitted by Michael Pfeifer, WCD Member
Sources:
What Is Medicaid, And Who Is Covered?
Senate Health Plan Falls Short of Promise for Cheaper Care, Experts Say