Medicaid is in the crosshairs of efforts to reduce the federal budget. That’s according to Arizona Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, who held a town hall Monday to discuss that possibility.
Quianna Brown is raising her 10-year-old daughter under the threat of major cuts to critical services.
“Would you mind telling your colleagues in Washington,” said Brown, addressing the senators, “that when they’re burning down this house, there’s people still inside? My kid is inside.”
She said that her daughter is thriving with services for children adopted from foster care and for people with disabilities from AHCCCS, Arizona’s Medicaid program.
“I wanted more,” said Brown as the town hall dispersed. “I think as a parent at any time where you feel that you can't protect your kid, you want a game plan.”
Gallego said putting Medicaid on the chopping block is the Trump administration’s plan.
“There's no way they get to those tax cuts without cutting Medicaid,” Gallego said. “The math doesn’t math.”
Even a relatively small cut in Medicaid funding could affect hundreds of thousands of Arizonans, according to Kelly.
The spending cuts, he said, are linked to what he called a push to cut taxes for billionaires and large corporations, adding that the $880 billion that AHCCCS and services like it would lose would help cover the resulting spike in the national debt.
“So that would then bring their 6 trillion number down to 4 trillion, and it doesn’t look as bad,” said Kelly. “But you got to remember, all of this – all of this stuff you’re hearing every single day is so they can give a big, giant tax cut to people who don’t need a tax cut.”
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