Some Cuts Don’t Heal: The Fight to Stop Medicaid Cuts
On Thursday, May 22, the House of Representatives passed a consequential budget bill that includes hundreds of billions in cuts to social programs, including Medicaid. If the bill advances through the Senate and gets signed into law, it will decimate funding for this life-saving program, other healthcare programs like New York’s Essential Plan, and other social safety net programs. More than 1 million of our patients — including some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers — will lose access to healthcare, entire hospitals could close, and thousands of nurses and healthcare workers could lose their jobs. The state will lose over $1 billion in federal funding, and healthcare costs, denials and paperwork will increase for many of us.
Saying that Medicaid is a life-saving program isn’t hyperbole. A recent study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the expansion of Medicaid has saved more than 27,000 lives since 2010. These findings confirm what nurses have been saying at every available opportunity and they explain why we’ve been fighting these cuts at every turn. Whether on the streets, by attending protests; on Capitol Hill, by going to lobby Congress directly; and in the press, by using our voices to call on our representatives to do the right thing, nurses have been at the forefront of the fight to save Medicaid, protect our patients, and defend our practice.
In April, USA Today published an Op-Ed by NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, where Hagans echoed the study’s conclusions. “Cuts to our nation's public service programs are premature death sentences for many of our nation's patients. As an ICU nurse of more than 30 years at a safety net hospital in Brooklyn, New York, I know this to be true,” she said in defense of Medicaid and Social Security.
Unfortunately, nurses not only have to fight against egregious attacks on healthcare by the federal government, but also by employers who are taking advantage of this critical moment to prioritize their profits over patients. On May 5, NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) Health System, the wealthiest hospital system in the state, announced 2% cuts across the board, which could mean that more than 1,000 healthcare workers will lose their jobs. NYSNA nurses are speaking up, pushing back, and demanding financial transparency, a reversal of the cuts to frontline staff and guaranteed placement of displaced nurses in the NYP hospital system.
The fight is not over, and the bill is not a done deal. The Senate still has to vote, and we can still pressure Congress to make changes while the process is not final. Stay tuned for upcoming actions to push our elected officials to do the right thing, and email politicalteam@nysna.org to get involved. Nurses cannot back down from this fight. We must protect Medicaid! Our patients’ lives depend on it.