Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) DON'T CUT MEDICAID
Mary Angus
June 9, 2011
ROCKEFELLER ANNOUNCES 41 DEMOCRATIC SENATORS WILL STAND FIRM AGAINST DRASTIC CUTS TO MEDICAID
“Medicaid is a fundamental source of health care coverage for millions of Americans in good times and bad,” said Rockefeller. “Reckless proposals to slash Medicaid are attacks on our fellow Americans who can least afford to lose to health care. They have no other safety net to return to. We’re counting on the White House to stand firm on our shared values here. Medicare and Social Security have been declared off the table in deficit negotiations but Medicaid suddenly looks like the sacrificial lamb. I say absolutely no.”
Rockefeller, a longtime champion of Medicaid, said the strong coalition will help set the terms of ongoing negotiations about cutting the deficit. According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation from May, most Americans oppose the idea of converting Medicaid to block grant financing to reduce the federal deficit. About half of Americans say they or a friend or family member has received Medicaid assistance at some point, and a similar share say the program is important to their family.
Background:
Senator Rockefeller has consistently supported efforts to reduce the deficit. But he has insisted that those proposals do not target working families and low-income individuals, and instead focus on smart spending cuts and making the tax code fair for middle class families.
Medicaid provides essential services to 68 million low-income children, parents, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and seniors, including 402,000 people in West Virginia. After almost 50 years, Medicaid is still a life-saving part of our nation’s health system – covering 40 percent of births (50 percent of births in West Virginia), 62 percent of long-term care, and, along with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, 34 percent of the children in our country.
Medicaid is also an economic engine supporting millions of home-grown jobs at hospitals, nursing homes, community health centers, and doctor’s offices. It also provides an essential lifeline to families, particularly during difficult economic times when people lose jobs that provided them with health insurance. During the height of the recession, between 2008 and 2009, Medicaid enrollment among families rose 9.3 percent.
Medicaid has also provided critical relief to states like Alabama and Missouri that have recently been affected by natural disasters. Historically, Medicaid has helped states during crises and through the recovery process – including in the wake of the September 11thattacks, the 2008 flooding across five counties in Iowa, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and in the most recent floods and tornados in the South.
The Republican budget calls for $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and turns it into a block grant program – forcing state and local governments to pick up the rest of the tab, or cut services to beneficiaries, as the cost of care increases. The added financial burden also would be pushed onto Medicaid recipients, such as seniors and people with disabilities, to pay more that they can’t afford or risk ending their health care coverage all together. It was estimated that a similar proposal to cut Medicaid would cost 3 million jobs from 2013 to 2020.
To date, 41 Senators have pressed the White House to stand firm on Medicaid. On June 7, Rockefeller and 36 other Senators sent a letter to the President stating their opposition to cutting Medicaid. Click hereto view the full text of the letter. Four other Senators also sent separate letters to the President expressing their opposition to cutting Medicaid as part of this joint effort.
The co-signers of Rockefeller’s letter include Senators Patrick Leahy, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, John F. Kerry, Daniel K. Inouye, Daniel K. Akaka, Barbara A. Mikulski, Benjamin L. Cardin, Barbara Boxer, Jeff Bingaman, Al Franken, Mary L. Landrieu, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Robert Menendez, Frank R. Lautenberg, Charles E. Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Jack Reed, Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray, Tim Johnson, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, Bernard Sanders, Bill Nelson, Mark Begich, Christopher A. Coons, Richard J. Durbin, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Harkin, Jon Tester, Herb Kohl, Carl Levin, and Tom Udall.
Senators Dianne Feinstein, Mark Udall, Michael Bennet, and Amy Klobuchar sent separate letters to the President.