1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

I am the Mother of two now adult children with complex medical needs. I don’t know what we would have done without Medicaid! There were many years when I was unable to work outside the home so that I could stay home and provide medical care for my children. We were “lucky”. My husband had a decent job that provided insurance but if we had not had Medicaid as a backup, we would have definitely gone bankrupt with co-pays and deductibles. And when he was laid off, Medicaid was my children’s saving grace! Medicaid is very hard to get and very hard to keep! They are extremely thorough in vetting eligibility. It would be very difficult to “cheat” the system. On the contrary, I have dedicated my entire adult life working on behalf of families of kids with children with serious health needs and many who SHOULD be covered are not. The legislation released by the Energy and Commerce Committee heads to a markup Tuesday afternoon, and includes a 160-page section covering health care and Medicaid. The first 90 pages are cuts or new limits to Medicaid. If this budget passes, the impact on families, especially families with children who have serious health conditions, will be devastating! At least 8.6 million people would lose coverage if this budget passes. State budgets will be crushed by this. FAMILIES will be crushed by this. CHILDREN will be crushed by this. Because of Medicaid, my daughters have grown into independent adults. They still live with a life-threatening medical condition, but they are able to work because Medicaid made it possible to access the health care they needed. If they lose their jobs, they will need to access Medicaid again in order to stay alive! (And they could lose their jobs as a result of the federal layoffs and loss of federal funding.) I do not believe that the current administration has explored all the unanticipated consequences of these devastating cuts. They only see the tax breaks which will mostly benefit a small portion of the American people and not the big picture of those who will be impacted so severely. I have not even addressed all that Medicaid does. Medicaid provides coverage for several special populations. For example, Medicaid covers 41% of all births in the United States, nearly half of children with special health care needs, 5 in 8 nursing home residents, 29% of non-elderly adults with any mental illness, and 40% of non-elderly adults with HIV. Medicaid pays Medicare premiums and often provides wraparound coverage for services not covered by Medicare (like most long-term care) for nearly 1 in 5 Medicare beneficiaries (13 million). Medicaid is a key source of coverage for individuals experiencing homelessness and those transitioning out of carceral settings, particularly in states that have adopted the Medicaid expansion. Please fight these cuts with every tool in your toolbox. Protect Medicaid. Please.