Senate rejects Bush’s Medicaid cuts
By
Mary Owen
Published Mar 23, 2005 4:27 PM
After a mass outcry against the draconian Medicaid
cuts proposed by the Bush administration, the Senate voted March 17 to remove
$14 billion in proposed cuts from its version of next year’s national
budget and create a one-year commission to recommend program changes.
That seven Senate Republicans joined all 45 Democrats shows the extent of
nation wide popular opposition to cuts that would have slashed health-care
funding for some 53 million low-income people: pregnant women, seniors, disabled
people and uninsured children.
The vote is a stinging rebuke to the Bush
administration’s domestic agenda. The Asso ci ated Press said it amounted
to “killing the heart of the plan’s deficit reduc tion and dealing
an embarrassing setback to President Bush and Repub lican leaders.”
However, the struggle to stop the cuts is not over. The House narrowly
passed a budget proposal calling for more severe Medi caid cuts—$20
billion. Health-care advocates and unions will need to keep up the pressure as
budget discussions continue.
Jointly funded by the federal and state
governments, Medicaid pays for necessary medical care for low-income patients.
Covered services include doctor visits, inpatient and some outpatient hospital
services, laboratory and x-ray fees, nursing home, family planning and
pregnancy-related services, home health care, nurse-midwife services and
periodic screening for children under 21. Some states offer additional
benefits.
Medicaid funding accounts for up to 22 percent of state budgets
and is the largest source of federal revenue to the states. Federal Medicaid
cuts would have a devastating ripple effect nationwide at a time when
health-care and drug costs are rising, giant low-wage employers like Wal-Mart do
not offer health insurance, and workers fortunate enough to have work-based
health coverage lose it due to layoffs.
One such Medicaid patient, Cynthia
Bryant, spoke out on March 17 at a rally in Livonia, Mich., against the proposed
cuts. A spinal cord injury at work left her paralyzed from the waist down, and
Bryant turned to Medicaid when her health insurance and financial support from
her family ran out.
“I don’t want to see any of my care be
potentially cut,” she said, “because I’m making progression
and hope to someday live on my own.”
Unions mobilize against
cuts
New York state receives the most federal Medicaid funding. Unions
representing health workers there are mobilizing against proposed cuts.
In New York, Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees District
Council 37 and other public health-care unions held a massive, week-long
petition drive at 12 city public hospitals and facilities March 7-11 to give
patients, their families and city health-care workers a voice against the cuts.
(dc37.net)
The city’s public hospitals could lose $300 million if
Medicaid cuts go through, while the Family Health Plus insurance program for
low-wage workers faces $17 million in cuts.
“DC 37 members fought
hard to save public hospitals when the city wanted to sell them,” said
Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “Now we’re speaking up again to
stop proposed Medicaid cuts that threaten to undo the gains that city hospitals
and facilities have made in providing state-of-the-art health care to those most
in need.”
Local 1199 Service Employees union represents tens of
thousands of health-care workers in nonprofit hospitals and facilities as well
as home-care workers state wide. The union will hold major rallies against
Medicaid cuts in eight cities across New York state on April 7.
(1199seiu.org)
“The national priorities in Washington today are
fighting wars, redistributing wealth upward and starving programs that serve
essential human needs,” said 1199 SEIU President Dennis Rivera in a call
to action to union members.
At a recent conference of Medicaid Matters New
York, a coalition of more than 100 community-based organizations, one
participant outlined another challenge of the Medicaid
struggle.
“There’s a war going on,” he said. “But
as the Bush administration cuts back on veterans’ benefits and closes VA
hospitals, where does he think injured vets will go? They’ll go on
Medicaid.” (medicaidmatters.org)
All the more reason, say
health-care advocates, to redouble efforts to stop the Medicaid cuts.
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