AURORA | Aurora Congressperson Jason Crow’s guest for President Donald Trump’s address to Congress knows the impacts of threatened Medicaid cuts first hand. She helps Aurora area residents get healthcare who otherwise would go without.
Rosario Morales, a program enrollment manager at STRIDE Community Health Center in Aurora, who works closely with patients on Medicaid and other necessary affordable health services, joined Crow for President Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night.
Both Crow and Morales call Trump’s push to cut government spending reckless and likely to hurt the poorest and most vulnerable Americans when it comes to health care.
A Republican budget resolution passed last week calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to identify $880 billion in cuts over the next decade. Fulfilling the resolution would likely mean significant cuts for Medicaid, according to Crow and budget watch organizations.
“I think what this administration doesn’t understand is that it would cost so much more for taxpayers and Americans on the back end because people won’t access preventive care,” Crow said. “All of this costs our system exorbitant amounts of money.”
Crow said he decided to bring Morales after he spoke with her during his visit to STRIDE in February, where she stressed how crucial Medicaid is for many of their patients. She said the cuts would be devastating and cause health care locations to close and patients on Medicaid to be less likely to get the preventative care they need.
“The truth is that any cuts to Medicaid would be terrible for all of the locations,” Morales said. “We would probably have to close down our services.”
She said it is vital that their locations receive Medicaid and that their patients receive Medicare and Medicaid.
She said one STRIDE patient is a “perfect example” of what’s at stake for Aurora residents. One woman has been waiting for an organ transplant, and depends on Medicaid for the surgery. “If Medicaid goes away, then there goes her opportunity of receiving a transplant,” Morales said in a brief video taken by Crow’s staff at the Capitol.
Without treatment provided by Medicaid, or a transplant, “she won’t be able to survive,” Morales said. “So it would basically be life or death for her.”
STRIDE is Colorado’s largest federally qualified health center and has 18 locations throughout the suburban front range. They provide affordable healthcare for underserved and uninsured people, and Medicaid cuts would be devastating, Morales said. STRIDE takes care of more than 50,000 patients each year, and Morales said that Medicaid cuts could affect thousands of those patients.
Other groups at risk would be elderly Americans who spend down their life savings before qualifying for Medicaid to help with assisted living and nursing home costs, the Associated Press reported. That widely publicized risk has gained the attention of numerous Republican lawmakers, who discovered millions of Medicaid recipients were GOP voters in both red and blue states.
One in four Coloradans get healthcare with Medicaid, which is 1.69 million people. There are 115,000 Medicaid recipients in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, according to the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
Medicaid offers affordable healthcare to children, seniors, people with disabilities, and working families to get needed and preventative care without choosing between health and basic needs like food, Crow said.
It makes “no sense” why they would make cuts to a healthcare program that would eventually cost the government more because of the higher expenses of emergency care. Both Congressional and independent studies have revealed a net savings in Medicaid and other health insurance and healthcare programs by ensuring people have access to preventative care.
At Trump’s address, Crow said he would be the voice of his constituents in Washington and that he would continue to leverage the budget to fight against possible cuts to any program like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
Nonsense. The Biden-Harris administration used the Covid pandemic as an excuse to expand Medicaid eligibility well into middle-class level incomes with people who could afford to buy their own health insurance from the “Obamacare” health insurance exchange. Medicaid was designed to provide healthcare for the poorest of the poor in our society. Any cuts made will not touch these individuals.
Is that right Kirk? You assume middle class income families have plenty of money left over to “buy their own health insurance” under Obamacare? We’ll assume that means you who’s doing fine with a job and plenty of cash to pay your bills. Right Kirk? Then there’s your claim Medicaid was “designed for the poorest of our society” and “cuts made will not touch these individuals.” Do tell! I’m amazed at your grasp of the facts according to Kirk.
We’re talking about lower middle-class income individuals here! These are people who would rather spend their money on other things than health insurance. We’re talking about people who wanted that new pickup rather than buy health insurance, people who spend $10 on Starbucks daily, people who go out to eat 2 and 3 times per week, people who would rather have that new dress or nice jewelry or keep their Broncos season tickets rather than pay for health insurance. Health insurance should be one’s top priority after a roof over one’s head. Show me a complete accounting of ones middle-income revenues and expenditures and I will find a way they can afford health insurance from the income-based Obamacare insurance exchange. Guaranteed. Wants aren’t needs. Than there are also those able bodied individuals who would have health insurance provided by their employers except for the fact they refuse to work. Admit it, Democrats want to see everyone on government provided health care (Medicare for all). Expanding Medicaid is just another step in this direction.
In Charles Dickens short story, A Christmas Carol, Scrooge talks glibly about the poor dying because they resisted going to the poor house and facing family separation. He says if they would rather die than go, “perhaps they should get on with it and decrease the surplus population.” That’s pretty much what the Trump/Musk team is saying to us! The evil reason behind these cuts is that Trump will make a big deal about the cuts and, of course, lie about the savings, so he can sell his tax cut for billionaires. Don’t forget, that’s where we are heading, the result of which will be a further spread in the wealth gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us. Is that what we want or need? I don’t think Elon, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg need raises, especially at the expense of healthcare for veterans or the poorest among us. I don’t think research for medical advancement is waste either, but those are part of the cuts. This after a comparison of employment by the top democracies of the world put the US last in the number of workers per 100,000 people. We are still planning to go to Mars, but can’t afford healthcare for veterans or the poor! How rigorously is the waste being evaluated? I don’t trust Musk or Trump on this current path we are on…