In West Virginia, 516,500 of our friends, family members and neighbors are covered by Medicaid, that includes: 49,000 seniors, 196,000 children and 86,000 people with disabilities.
The plan to slash Medicaid funding will have a huge impact here in West Virginia.
Access to medical care for all of us in rural areas and cities alike will be severely and immediately threatened. This cannot be labeled as some kind of attempt to eliminate so-called “welfare cheats.†Facilities relying on Medicaid throughout the state will close, making access to health care more difficult for everybody. In fact, 70% of nursing home patients rely on this funding. Without it, facilities will close and people will be cast out to find their own way.
Many community health care providers are earning much less than they could in for-profit medical practice and they are already struggling to provide care to poor communities. They will vanish and strain the already fragile infrastructure of care.
West Virginia, arguably the least-healthy and poorest state in the nation, will be subjected to an even greater health care crisis. This impacts all of us, as we will soon see. Some hospitals will close, the cost of caring for destitute people will be built into the fees that others pay. Insurance won’t honor those claims. The cuts will damage ambulance, EMS and other services. Disaster preparedness and response will be hamstrung. The ripple effect on local economies is profound.
Medical care and related services employ huge numbers of mountaineers. Widespread unemployment will result and the loss of that tax base will cripple education, police and fire departments and other public services.
The entire population will suffer serious harm. All this is predictable, avoidable and unacceptable.
The planned destruction of Medicaid services in West Virginia, plus attempts to roll back coverage in the Affordable Care Act, plus elimination of SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for school children) equals big trouble for our children and the future of our state.
Our congressional delegation must adhere faithfully to President Donald Trump’s agenda or face very real consequences. The MAGA method tolerates no dissent within the ranks and the needs of the public are considered only when they match those of the president.
For 10 years, Trump has promised a new and “beautiful†health care plan for the U.S. but has never produced it. Where is it and what is it? A good first step in reform might be to offer all residents of the U.S. the same health care options available to the president and members of Congress. After all, we are in this together, aren’t we?
