Former Medicaid Administrator, Patients, and Providers Urge Congressional Leaders to Vote Against Cuts to Medicaid
PHOENIX — Former Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure joined Honest Arizona, Protect Our Care, the Arizona Public Health Association, Healthcare Rising and Arizona Medicaid recipients held a virtual roundtable on the importance of Medicaid on Monday and urged Republicans in Congress to vote against any cuts to the program.
Congressmen David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani both voted twice to advance a budget resolution that requires $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid. There could be a vote as soon as next week on whether or not to cut Medicaid and SNAP to pay for tax handouts to corporations and billionaires as individual House committees mark the bill up this week.
According to KJZZ:
“Health care leaders and patient advocates joined Protect Our Care Arizona and Honest Arizona on a virtual call where they talked about the proposed $880 billion in cuts.
Other potential changes for recipients include new community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents.
Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, says the state’s Medicaid program already submitted its waiver request.
'We don't know what the, you know, what Congress is going to say the definition of able-bodied is, we do know what our Medicaid agency AHCCCS says about the definition of able-bodied, and they were very thoughtful about excluding a lot of populations … from those work requirements,' he said.
Humble says rural communities would likely be hit hardest by these proposed cuts.”
“Medicaid is vital, not only for promoting better health and well-being for the 72 million people enrolled – 2 million in Arizona – but also for our economy, our hospital systems, and our health care workers overall,” said Brooks-Lasure. “Over 13 million could lose health care coverage in both Medicaid and the ACA Marketplace from these proposals - and that is a low estimate. The current proposals laid out by House Republicans will only cause harm to our communities and health care system in both Arizona and this nation as a whole.”
"Access to Medicaid services for people with HIV/AIDS has enabled us to be close to ending the HIV epidemic," said Chuck Albrecht, a resident of Arizona's first congressional district. "With the proposed cuts to Medicaid, people with HIV will no longer have access to lifesaving care and medications, the virus will mutate to become resistant to medications, and more people will become sick and die from HIV/AIDS than ever before."
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