Tell Congress to Oppose Medicaid Cuts
Right now, Congress is considering a reckless budget package that would make the 2017 tax giveaway to billionaires and giant corporations permanent, and expand the tax cuts for the rich by cutting $1.5 trillion from essential programs like Medicaid.
Medicaid, known as MaineCare in Maine, is the single largest source of health care coverage in the United States, and a major source of funding for hospitals, community health centers and nursing homes. About 400,000 people in Maine rely on Medicaid coverage, or about 29 percent of the state’s 1.4 million residents. Nationally 1 in 5 people have Medicaid coverage.
Medicaid—not Medicare— is the actually the primary payer for 70 percent of Maine nursing home residents, compared to 63 percent nationally. Medicaid also pays for 42 percent of births in the United States each year. And it’s Medicaid that provides health care for nearly half of all children in our country.
The Republican budget reconciliation plan being considered in Congress would add significant out-of-pocket health care costs for low-income MaineCare recipients, roll back staffing requirements at nursing homes and add additional administrative burdens to make Medicaid harder to navigate as part of a plan to reduce enrollment in the program.
“A lot of these policies will add administrative costs for the states, burdens for people, the potential for more improper payments and errors in processing,” said Allison Orris, director of Medicaid policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). “All of this shifting of the ball can result in people losing coverage.”
These cuts are coming as Maine’s rural health care providers are in crisis. This year alone, Northern Light announced the closure of Inland Hospital in Waterville, Maine General is carrying out mass layoffs and birthing centers are closing left and right.
The proposed cuts would tear health care away from millions of people, including kids and our most vulnerable Americans. It would raise health care and insurance costs for everyone else. And massive cuts to Medicaid would cause hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and home-health agencies to close or downsize, especially in rural and lower-income communities—causing 477,000 health care jobs to be lost in 2026 alone.