After a battle to hurt Washington Avoid government closures but Break their party among the two Last week, the leading California Democrats tried to project a unified front on the core issues in the next big budget struggle: Medicaid.
Democrats say Republicans have shown that they intend to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from health care programs targeting low-income residents, disabled people and other vulnerable groups in order to pay tax cuts for the rich.
“Our budget should be a statement of our country’s values.
The campaign is part of a broader national effort by Democrats to align clear messages about Republican budget priorities, i.e. they are talking about threatening the well-being of ordinary Americans, and before any votes in Washington.
They don’t want to repeat last week’s mistake, when Democrats broke up in Republican cessation measures to avoid a federal shutdown.
Party leaders are accused of making chaotic news about the danger, Surrender to Republicans At a time when there is little leverage, as they continue to move forward against the federal government and the normal, bipartisan funding process, President Trump and his party have delivered important victories.
The incident exposed deep fission in Democratic strategy, with former House Speaker Pelosi even making rare and unsuccessful pleas for Democratic senators with their leaders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and opposing the frozen measures.
But on Tuesday, Pelosi and Schumer seemed to align again, if not last week, at least compared to how to move forward. Pelosi’s event is part of the Medicaid Day that Schumer touted on ABC’s “The View.”
“We have senators and congressmen go to various parts of their states and territories and talk about how bad Medicaid cuts are,” Schumer said.
“We don’t bother, we organized, today, today, we started a lot of events in New York,” Pelosi responded a few hours later. “And we have them tomorrow, the next day and the next day.”
Many Democrats have held smaller events and roundtable discussions with health care providers in their area, including Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove in Los Angeles and Rep. Ted Lieu of Redondo Beach. Protesters also condemn Medicaid Outside the Anaheim Hill office Republican Rep. Young Kim.
Democrats say their high focus on Medicaid is more than just boldness—even though Republicans have done so.
Trump has repeatedly said his party has not followed people’s Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits, and the White House’s actions against the claims have made people angry, saying the administration only supports the elimination of fraud and abuse in such programs.
“Which kind of person doesn’t support eliminating waste, fraud and abuse that ultimately loses taxpayers in government spending?” it said.
Republican lawmakers have made similar arguments, accusing Democrats of lying just to make their bases flood and win political views.
Last week, a protester had a sign outside the office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who said he would vote for the funding patch for Republican writing to avoid a government shutdown, saying it was better for two bad options.
(Michel Nigro/Pacific Press/Lightrocket via Getty Images)
But Republicans passed a budget resolution last month aiming to extend the 2017 tax cuts, including finding trillions of dollars in spending cuts to pay for their expenses.
The resolution does not explicitly call for Medicaid cuts, but it directs the Housing Energy and Commerce Commission, which oversees Medicaid, to reduce spending by $880 billion over the next decade.
Simple math makes it clear that the only way the committee can find a level of cut is to cut Medicaid unless they want to cut older people’s health plans, and Republicans say it’s not on the table. The committee can completely cut everything else in the budget – completely – still not meet the savings that Republicans demand, a Independent analysis The Congressional Budget Office is over.
House rankings at Pelosi’s event, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-ST. Helena, a Democrat, said on tax policy subcommittee, saying Republicans denying that their budget solution calls for Medicaid cuts is not the truth.
“We’re here, the president and the Republican in Congress want to cut Medicaid,” Thompson said.
Medi-Cal in California covers nearly 15 million Californians, or more than one-third of the state’s population, according to latest estimates from state health officials. Many of these patients are children.
But, as Thompson and other activities have pointed out, many others in the state will also be affected by Medicaid cuts as they succumb to health systems and hospitals, especially in rural and other impoverished communities where Medicaid patients are a larger proportion of patients.
“We need to make sure colleagues in the red area of the state understand this, and they speak up,” Thompson said.
Senator Adam Schiff agreed, saying the cuts “absolutely destroy health care nationwide, especially states like California, who have many residents who utilize Medicaid.”
Schiff said health care systems across the state, especially in rural areas Already in a “unstable position” financiallycutting Medicaid funds will “close the closed floors of hospitals and clinics.”
Dr. Josh Adler, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at UCSF Health, said more than 70% of hospitalizations in the system are roughly distributed between Medicare and Medicaid patients. He said last year, 58% of emergency room patients and 35% of hospitalized patients in the system depended on Medicaid.
He said the cuts envisioned in Congress would “severely weaken the healthcare system that millions of Californians rely on high-quality primary and secondary care while increasing unpaid care costs in hospitals already under financial pressure.”
Amy Herold, Obesity Administration, and Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer at Napa Valley Medical Center, said her area is well-known for tourism, but is indeed a rural agriculture and service community, which is reflected in the users of her system.
Herrod said 75% of the patients in the hospital are on Medicare or Medicaid, and Medicaid is over 30%, “When you watch the women we pregnant have babies, including the one I gave birth two days ago, that’s going to grow more than 50%.
The proposed cuts will make it difficult for her hospitals to stay open, despite the fact that it is the only person in her county to have a trauma center and a workforce and delivery center.
“There will be a health care desert, so people on Medi-Cal/Medicaid won’t have access to care and no one (regardless of your insurance status) will have access to care,” she said. “That’s what got me up at night.”
Sascha Bittner has served on the Disability and Aging Services Committee in San Francisco, with tetraplegia, visual impairment with speech and cerebral palsy, and has saved her life by providing her family and community support and a range of health care services. She said she spent five months in the hospital with lymphoma in 2013, which would kill her life or bankrupt her family without Medicaid.
“There are some disabled children, older people and other vulnerable groups who rely on Medicaid, and the Republican plan to bring this critical support program is an attack on our lives,” Bitner said.
