Tell Congress: Hands Off Medicaid!

What's at Stake?

Congress is rushing to pass major budget cuts that will gut Medicaid. Together with the decision to not extend enhanced premium tax credits for ACA coverage, this plan will take away healthcare from 13.7 million Americans to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.

House leadership is aiming to have this wrapped up by the end of this week, so now is the time to act to stop these harmful cuts. If passed, this would be the most significant cut to Medicaid in history.  Those who support cuts are trying to obscure the true impact while claiming that these cuts will somehow protect the most vulnerable. But make no mistake: this bill will gut access to healthcare for people with disabilities, seniors, children, women, caregivers,and workers, even though these groups and the programs they rely may not be mentioned by name in the bill.

How Will This Impact Pennsylvania?

• Imposes harmful work reporting requirements that penalize those who lose their job or are unable to work, including people with disabilities, older adults, students, and others meant to be exempt, all while costing Pennsylvania millions and doing nothing to address unemployment. See what happened in Georgia, for example.
   

• Takes healthcare away from low-income adults in the Medicaid Expansion group, many of whom are working, battling cancer, caring for a child or family member, or attending school, by imposing new and higher out-of-pocket costs, more frequent eligibility checks, and burdensome reporting requirements that will cause people to lose coverage.
   

• Reduces federal funding for states by $715 Billion. This puts pressure on already-strained state budgets and leaves states on the hook to find enough money to make up for the lost federal revenue—which Gov. Shapiro has already said PA cannot do— or remove people from Medicaid and cut more expensive services.  History has shown us that, when faced with federal Medicaid funding cuts, all states have cut services for seniors and people with disabilities. At the same time, the proposal curtails states’ ability to impose provider taxes, which 49 states—including Pennsylvania—rely on to fund their share of the Medicaid program.
   

• Guts access to reproductive healthcare, especially in rural areas, by defunding Planned Parenthood, even for primary care and routine services like cancer screenings, STI testing, and birth control.
   

• Puts even more Pennsylvania hospitals at risk of closure. The increased number of uninsured patients means more uncompensated care for hospitals, forcing even more hospitals to close their doors in rural areas and other parts of PA. With hospitals already struggling, these cuts will only exacerbate an already dire crisis, further diminishing our communities’ access to care and hurting local economies and job opportunities.

What Can You Do?

If we act now, there is still time to prevent these harmful cuts.  The House aims to vote on the budget proposal this week, before the Memorial Day recess. And some House members are pushing for even more drastic cuts than what what’s in the current proposal.

Call your members of Congress today and tell them "NO CUTS TO MEDICAID!"

• Use this Call-in Script
• Not getting through/voicemail full? Use this form to email your leaders in the meantime.