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social security works
Asked About Backing 'Largest Cuts in History' of Medicaid, GOP Rep. Miller-Meeks Has No Comment
"Does it concern you that you only won by 800 votes?" asked the executive director of Social Security Works.
May 20, 2025
Ahead of a "Hands Off Medicaid" rally planned in Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks' district in Iowa, the economic justice group Social Security Works on Tuesday wanted to see if the congresswoman had a message for her constituents about the vote she cast in favor of advancing massive cuts to Medicaid.
"Rep. Miller-Meeks, I'm wondering if you have any comment on the healthcare that 67,000 people in your district are going to lose?" asked Alex Lawson, executive director of the group, following the congresswoman down a hallway on Capitol Hill as she made her way to an elevator reserved for lawmakers.
Miller-Meeks sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which last week was one of three committees to advance part of President Donald Trump's legislative agenda, including more than $700 billion in federal healthcare cuts.
Progressives have focused heavily on Miller-Meeks as Republicans in Congress have grappled with how to secure tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that would blow a $3.8 trillion hole in the federal deficit. Miller-Meeks, who won her reelection campaign by just 800 votes in 2024, is among the swing district Republicans whom advocates have pressured to reject Medicaid cuts that would harm their constituents.
As Miller-Meeks attempted to ignore Lawson and said she had "no comment," Lawson noted that she previously "lied" to Social Security Works and said she wouldn't support Medicaid cuts.
"But then you actually voted for the largest cuts to Medicaid in the history of the country," he said. "Do you have any comment on that? Do you have any comment on the four hospitals in your district that are going to close because of your vote?"
Finally Lawson asked whether Miller-Meeks has given any thought to how her vote could impact her political future in a district where about 102,500—16%—of her constituents depend on Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which would also be slashed under the Republican bill.
"Does it concern you that you only won by 800 votes?" Lawson asked before Miller-Meeks got on the elevator.
Social Security Works urged voters in Iowa's 1st District to join the group Wednesday for its rally in Jasper County, and to ask the congresswoman—who's also a doctor—"why she's cutting $700 billion from Medicaid."
One advocate, Mathew Helman, posed a question to Miller-Meeks on social media: "If you ran for Congress honestly on your actual platform of slashing Medicaid and closing Iowa hospitals, how do you think you'd do?"
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GOP Cuts to Medicaid 'Will Kill People,' Advocate Warns and New Research Bolsters
A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
May 16, 2025
Critics who say extensive cuts to Medicaid being pushed by the Trump administration and House Republicans will result in the deaths of people were bolstered Friday by new reporting on a recent study detailing how the key health program for the nation's poor saves live.
As Republicans in Congress pressed ahead this week with a plan that would cause at least 8 million Americans to lose Medicaid as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump, a recently published working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, first reported on by The New York Times, shows that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
A provision in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014, allowed states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all low-income adults regardless of disability or parenthood status. The change is part of the reason that enrollment in the program rose roughly 50% between 2010 and 2021, according to the authors of the study.
The study, which used a dataset of 37 million low-income American adults, found that expansions increased Medicaid enrollment by 12 percentage points. The study estimates that people who enrolled in Medicaid were 21% less likely to die compared to those not enrolled.
"These expansions appear to be cost-effective, with direct budgetary costs of $5.4 million per life saved and $179,000 per life-year," according to a summary of the working paper.
The researchers told the Times that the timing of the release of the working paper was not connected to Congress' current conversation around Medicaid, though they told the outlet that the debate made their findings especially relevant.
The Times described the research as "the most definitive study yet" on Medicaid's health effects and health economists not involved with the research described it as the most persuasive proof so far that Medicaid and other types of health insurance save lives.
Meanwhile, on Friday, efforts to pass the GOP megabill hit a stumbling block when a handful of Republican so-called "fiscal hawks" voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the reconciliation package from advancing through a key committee vote. The Republican hardliners voted no because they want more cuts to Medicaid.
After the vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, vowed that Democrats would "keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
In response to the House Budget Committee vote, Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works said on Friday: "Make no mistake, Republicans still plan to bring it to the House floor next week."
Lawson blasted the proposed Medicaid cuts, writing that "their plan will kill people."
"The ripple effect of these cuts will hit every single person in this country," he added. "Unless you are a billionaire, your standard of living and your health care will get worse if this despicable plan becomes law."
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Republicans Plan to Rip Medicaid Away from Millions of Seniors — All to Give Tax Cuts to Billionaires
It is impossible to cut hundreds of billions from Medicaid without hurting massive numbers of seniors. Unless we stop them, that is exactly what GOP lawmakers are about to do.
May 13, 2025
Republicans are preparing to give trillions in tax handouts to millionaires and billionaires. How do they plan to pay for these tax handouts? By stealing health care from 13.7 million Americans, including destroying Medicaid as a functioning system for millions of seniors, children, and people with disabilities.
Older Americans and their families are often shocked to learn that, under most circumstances, Medicare doesn’t cover long term care. Medicaid does. In fact, Medicaid pays for over 60 percent of nursing home care. It also covers other types of long-term care, such as in-home care. And, Medicaid covers premiums and out-of-pocket costs for millions of low-income people with Medicare.
To qualify for Medicaid long term care, many seniors have to “spend down” their assets and savings. This is morally wrong. We will never stop fighting for a Medicare for All system, where everyone in America gets high quality health care that is free at point of service. But as flawed as the current system is, it’s far better than the Republican alternative — ripping away Medicaid, so that seniors who need long term care (and other care not covered by Medicare) can’t get it at all.
The bottom line: People will die because they can’t get the care they need.
Make no mistake: Republican Medicaid cuts will devastate seniors, ripping away critical care. Republicans are planning to make $880 billion in spending cuts to pay for the tax handout to the wealthy, and the majority of those cuts will come from Medicaid. It is impossible to cut hundreds of billions from Medicaid without hurting massive numbers of seniors.
Several of the Medicaid cuts they are considering amount to different ways of giving states far fewer federal dollars to spend on Medicaid. That means states will have to scale back their Medicaid programs, which will inevitably hurt seniors.
These cuts will hit all hospitals, but will almost immediately devastate rural hospitals, which rely on federal Medicaid dollars to stay afloat. America’s Essential Hospitals, the group representing these hospitals, says that the Republican plan “would cause children, pregnant patients, and disabled people to lose access to their coverage. Older populations living in nursing homes would also risk losing their health care coverage.”
If Republicans pass their Medicaid cuts into law, hospitals around the country — disproportionately in red states, which are more rural — will close. That’s on top of 200 rural hospitals that have already closed in the last decade. These closures won’t just impact people on Medicaid. It will devastate entire communities that rely on these hospitals.
Seniors with medical emergencies are in no position to drive hundreds of miles to a different hospital. This will also increase the burden on family caregivers, who will now have to travel further to get their spouse or aging parents to the hospital. The bottom line: People will die because they can’t get the care they need.
Congressional Republicans want to ruin the lives of millions more seniors, by taking away their Medicaid.
At the same time Republicans are planning these enormous Medicaid cuts, the Trump-Musk regime is breaking Social Security. They’ve pushed out 7,000 of the public servants who help Americans claim their earned benefits, with more layoffs to come. Field offices around the country have lost half their staff, leading to much longer wait times — if you can get an appointment at all.
Like the planned Medicaid cuts, these Social Security cuts are disproportionately hurting people living in rural areas and people with disabilities. If they can’t navigate the increasingly glitchy website, they may have to travel hundreds of miles to a Social Security office for an appointment.
The Musk henchmen running Social Security are also wrongly declaring people dead, cutting them off from their earned benefits as well as their credit cards and bank accounts — financial murder. People are flooding overwhelmed field offices, desperate to fix the error. In one keystroke, the Trump-Musk regime is ruining their lives. And Congressional Republicans want to ruin the lives of millions more seniors, by taking away their Medicaid.
All of this suffering is completely preventable. America is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Republicans want to rip health care away from tens of millions of people to give tax cuts to billionaires. Instead, let’s make those billionaires pay their fair share — and use the money to give everyone in America the health care they need.
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