American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) President Lee Saunders says:

Over the last 60 years, Medicare and Medicaid have become lifelines for the health and financial security of tens of millions of Americans.

Before Medicare, roughly half of older Americans had no health insurance and one-third of seniors lived in poverty.

Today, nearly all older people have coverage and only 10% are below the poverty line.

Medicaid, funded jointly by the Federal Government and the States, is now the largest Health Insurance Program in America, covering one out of five people and 40% of all children nationwide. 

Medicaid also pays for nearly two thirds of nursing home care and over 40% of all births nationwide.

And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion helped millions of low-wage Workers finally secure health coverage.

But despite all the progress we’ve made through Medicare and Medicare, Congress and the President have crashed the programs’ 60th anniversary party with a slash-and-burn budget that threatens to throw our entire Health Care System into chaos.

Under the so-called “big beautiful Bill” signed into law, the wealthiest earners in our society rake in huge new tax breaks while Medicaid is slashed by $1 trillion - yes, that’s trillion with a ‘T.’

These cuts, combined with reduced subsidies for buying private health insurance, will leave over 15 million people uninsured in the coming years - that’s roughly the populations of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, combined.

The human cost will be staggering, as millions of lower-income Workers are once again left one illness away from bankruptcy.

And as emergency rooms are flooded by patients who cannot afford care, hospital revenues will plummet, facilities will close and premiums for employer-sponsored coverage will surge.

This big ugly Bill has big ugly consequences for Medicare, too.

Thanks to lobbying by Big Pharma, Congress and the President exempted some prescription drugs from price negotiation, hiking the cost of lifesaving medicines for seniors.

And because this billionaire tax cut bonanza explodes the deficit, the law will trigger an automatic $500 billion across the board cut to Medicare.

These cuts, especially to Medicaid, won’t just hurt people who rely on its coverage.

They will hurt all of us.

To Continue Reading This Labor Perspective, Go To: The Big Ugly Bill Slashes Medicaid By 1 Trillion and 15 Million Americans Are Now Uninsured – LaborPress

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