TONIGHT: 

In case you are interested, you can join LOTS of everyday New Yorkers at 8 p.m. tonight for a special Online Town Hall with senior Senator and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to hear about how we can join forces to fight back to protect New Yorker’s health care.  It appears that this call is being co-organized by labor leaders, faith-based organizations, and prominent healthcare advocacy groups around the state.

RSVP to participate here.

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TOMORROW MORNING 

JOIN THE NYS COUNCIL’S WEEKLY MEMBER SUPPORT AND PUBLIC POLICY CALL AT 9:15!

In light of recent events beginning with last night’s passage of the 2025 House Budget Resolution, we’ve asked Peter Delia, JD, Federal Policy and Advocacy Strategist at the National Council to join us for tomorrow morning’s call.  Peter will summarize what happened last night, what we can expect in the days ahead, and how we can continue to maximize our advocacy efforts designed to make our voices heard on behalf of Medicaid and other entitlement programs, and of course, the care recipients we serve, and the providers who serve them.  

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RESOURCES AND REQUESTS FOR ADVOCACY

WEIGH IN AND MAKE THEM NERVOUS!

Last night, all 7 Reps. from NY who are members of the House Republican Majority voted for a budget resolution that will slash nearly $1 trillion (with a “T”) from federal health care programs in order to pay for $4.5 trillion (with a “T”) in new tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.  Most of it will come out of Medicaid.

Here’s the list of those who said “yes!” to this idea:

• Nick LaLota (NY-1, eastern and northern Suffolk County)
• Andrew Garbarino (NY-2, southern Suffolk County)
• Nichole Malliotakis (NY-22, Staten Island and southwest Brooklyn)
• Mike Lawler (NY-17, Lower Hudson Valley/Northern Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and southern Dutchess Counties)
• Elise Stefanik (NY-21, North Country and Adirondack region)
• Nick Langworthy (NY-23, Southern Tier)
• Claudia Tenney (NY-24, Lake Ontario shoreline region except for Monroe County/Rochester)

We need LOTS of phone calls into their local district offices (especially by constituents) to express disappointment and anger.  Please be sure to share your own personal story about why Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and ACA matter to you and your community:

Here’s their local district office phone numbers:

• LaLota – 631-289-1097 (Hauppauge)
• Garbarino – 631-541-4225 (Patchogue)
• Malliotakis – 718-568-2870 (Staten Is.), 718-306-1620 (Brooklyn)
• Lawler – 845-201-2060 (Pearl River), 845-743-7130 (Mahopac)
• Stefanik – 518-561-2324 (Plattsburg), 315-219-8005 (Herkimer), 518-242-4707 (East Greenberg), 315-541-2670 (Ogdensburg)
• Langworthy – 607-377-3130 (Corning), 585-543-5033 (Olean), 716-488-8111 (Jamestown), 716-547-6844 (Clarence)
• Tenney – 315-236-7088 (Oswego), 585-869-2060 (Canandaigua), 716-514-5130 (Lockport)

Critical information:

Latino Impact: Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP

Cutting Medicaid would be a disaster for Latinos according to UnidosUS Based on American Community Survey data for 2023, analyzed via IPUMS USA, University of Minnesota, 

·  Medicaid provides health insurance to 20.3 million Hispanic Americans — nearly a third of the entire Latino community.

·  More than half of all Hispanic children rely on Medicaid for their health care.

·  Medicaid covers almost 3 in 10 Latino elders, age 65 and older, many of whom need Medicaid for critical long-term services and supports.

In polling from Protect Our Care and Hart Research last month, Hispanic voters surveyed are overwhelmingly favorable towards Medicaid and would disapprove of Republicans’ extreme plans to slash Medicaid funding. Among the Hispanic voters surveyed: 

·  Are overwhelmingly favorable towards Medicaid by 68 points (80% favorable vs. 12% unfavorable).

·  Only 10% support cutting the amount that the federal government spends on health care, with 62% wanting an increase and 20% wanting it to stay the same.

·  72% would disapprove (46% strongly disapprove) of Republicans in Congress making major cuts to Medicaid.

·  73% of Hispanic voters either depend on Medicaid themselves, have a family member or relative who does, or know someone who is close to them who does. 

People from all backgrounds would have their lives upended by the Budget Resolution’s SNAP cuts. Nearly 40 million Americans rely on SNAP to feed their families at some point during the year, including 10 million Hispanics, half of whom are children.  

·  Latinos earn less than Americans of other races and ethnicities, even though they have among the highest labor participation rates. In 2023, Latinos were 10% more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be in the labor force (67% vs. 61%); but median income was almost 25% lower for Latinos than for white adults ($915 vs. $1,196 a week). 

·  As a result, Hispanic families are particularly likely to experience hunger. Nearly two in five Latinos did not have enough food to eat in 2023 — more than any other racial or ethnic group and significantly more than in the past.  

·  High grocery bills already create unsustainable financial burdens for many Latino families. More than one in eight Latino adults have gone into debt to feed their families — more than in any other racial or ethnic group. 

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A live recording of a recent Webinar hosted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget focusING on the budget reconciliation process and coverING key aspects of budget reconciliation, the current and ongoing process, and potential next steps, can be found here on CRFB’s Website.  You can also find the slide deck that was used in the presentation here. 

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Attached you will find 3 screenshots from an article I just read that charts general categories for what is in the Senate Budget Reso, the House Reso, and some of the areas where they are different.   

As you can see from the screen shots (attached) showing the House Budget Reso targets for numerous House committees, the enormity of program cuts called for by the House budget stand as a singular threat to the well-being of people in every state, city, and rural community, threatening to take away their health coverage, make healthcare more expensive, and make it harder to afford food and other necessities.

The Senate should reject the House cuts both now and if Congress ultimately moves ahead with a second budget plan and reconciliation bill this year. 

The quick math on the House budget shows a stark equation: the cost of extending tax cuts for households with incomes in the top 1 percent — $1.1 trillion through 2034 — equals roughly the same amount as the proposed cuts for health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

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(From the Congressional Progressive Caucus Committee)

House Republicans passed their budget proposal last night, overcoming what at points seemed like insurmountable intraparty opposition and marking another step towards advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda. Sort of.  

Below I’ll explain how GOP leaders encouraged their members to vote yes, where those encouragements fall short, and what to watch next. 

How House Republicans assuaged their members’ concerns about Medicaid…

Last week, “at least double digits” of House Republicans were wary of supporting their leaders’ Trump-endorsed budget proposal given massive cuts on the table for programs their constituents depend on—namely, Medicaid, the health insurer for more than 72 million people. 

House GOP leaders spent the past week working to convince hesitant Republicans that their votes for the GOP budget resolution would not clear the path for kicking Americans off their health care coverage. Rather, they argued, they’d hit their savings targets by rooting out Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse. 

As evidenced by last night’s vote, that argument seems to have worked: ultimately, just one House Republican joined Democrats to oppose the budget blueprint. One previous holdout Republican said, “there’s a lot of space to address the issue without hurting beneficiaries.” 

…while continuing to threaten Medicaid.

The idea that House Republicans can cut anywhere close to the amount of money their budget proposes without taking health care away from families is simply not credible. Here’s why. 

First: the House GOP budget tasks the committee in charge of Medicaid with making the deepest cuts. 

Republican leaders have tried assuaging holdouts’ concerns by claiming the budget doesn’t mention Medicaid. Technically, that’s true. However, the budget directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to make at least $880 billion in cuts. 

To argue that Medicaid won’t be on the chopping block here is kind of like saying we’re going to an ice rink to play a sport, but we didn’t say we were going to play hockey—we could go there to swim or play soccer. All signs point to: we’re going to play hockey defund Medicaid.

Second: House Republicans’ own documents propose Medicaid policies to kick people off the program—not improve program integrity.

Our January 21 update discussed a leaked document listing measures Republicans might attempt to pass via reconciliation (the fast-track process they’re using to enact the president’s agenda without Democratic votes). The 50-page list describes dozens of provisions and their estimated budgetary impacts. 

Despite GOP claims that they’ll save money by targeting Medicaid “waste, fraud, and abuse,” this list doesn’t echo recommendations from the Government Accountability Office or Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission to do just that. It does, however, propose several options that would force Americans off of Medicaid, including through “work requirements” and “per capita caps.” We’ve covered these policies’ expected impacts in previous updates, but I’ll briefly dig into one example below.

Data shows that Medicaid work requirements reduce participation in the program considerably—including among people who meet the requirements but are confused by mandated reporting. Reports also indicate that people who lose coverage due to work requirements suffer long-term consequences: data from Arkansas shows that half struggle to pay off medical debt and nearly two-thirds delay taking medications due to their high cost. 

On top of that, there’s ample data showing that “work requirements” do little to actually promote employment. Most Medicaid enrollees already work, and most people within the minority who do not are caring for family members, have a disability, or attend school.  

Third: even if Republicans were serious about improving Medicaid program integrity, there’s no evidence that there is anything close to the level of waste, fraud, and abuse that would facilitate these kinds of cuts.  

Republicans have pointed to one statistic to argue that they could save Medicaid $50 billion annually by targeting wasteful spending. However, as multiple health care experts note, this metric does not measure fraud. And even if it did, $50 billion a year over the life of this 10-year budget proposal is $500 billion—well short of that $880 billion target for cuts from the Energy and Commerce Committee.

On a personal note: I worked for a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee years ago and recall hearing after hearing after hearing about eliminating Medicaid waste. I have no doubt there have been more since. I mention this because I know from experience that there’s been no shortage of congressional efforts to identify wasted Medicaid dollars. If there were hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings to be found here, we’d be talking about those findings. 

Lastly: there’s already a watchdog for Medicaid fraud. President Trump fired her. 

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) inspector general tracks waste, fraud, and abuse within programs like Medicaid and reports annually on efforts to improve program integrity. The most recent report came out just two months ago.  

Despite the GOP’s purported interest in rooting out waste, the President fired HHS’ inspector general Christi Grimm within days of his inauguration. Grimm warned, “if you’re reducing without regard and you get rid of these watchdogs and the people that work for them, I fear for some of these programs, including oversight for Medicare and Medicaid.”

What happens now? 

As a reminder, the Senate passed its own budget proposal last week, and it’s quite different from the House’s version (see our Friday update for details). Agreeing to the same budget blueprint in both chambers is step one for advancing the President’s agenda via the fast-track reconciliation process—and we’re not even there yet. 

If anything, last night’s House vote was the second step one. If Republicans are actually going to advance a bill that can become law, they’ll need to take a third step one in which both chambers agree to the same budget proposal. 

Bottom line: there’s a long way to go before this agenda is even close to becoming law. For a deeper dive into the next steps, check out The Basics of Budget Reconciliation. And on that note…

Join us on March 6 to ask all your reconciliation questions!

Join the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, Indivisible, and the National Women’s Law Center on Thursday, March 6 at 2 PM ET for Reconciliation Rundown: Understanding the Basics of Budget Reconciliation! 

Understanding reconciliation is essential for tracking the GOP’s policy plans and anticipating impacts on the rest of us. On March 6, we’ll break down why this process matters, discuss history’s lessons learned, and answer your questions. Register here!