Gop Tax Scam Hurts Everyone

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSAULNIER. Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of the first oath the gentlewoman took before she got here: First, do no harm.

I wish my Republican colleagues would take that oath because the harm that this proposal does to the least amongst us in this country is unfathomable, cruel, and madness from a financial perspective.

When everyone is cut off from Medicaid, where will they go? They will go to public hospitals that are already underfunded and trying to serve the least among us.

After all the stories you have heard, I want to put in some numbers. Think of multiplying these numbers to the stories you have heard, particularly for people who are the least among us as Americans.

There are 78.5 million people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program across America. This is 10 percent higher than in February 2020, pre-COVID.

One in three people with disabilities, 15 million, have Medicaid. Comparatively, 19 percent of adults without disabilities have Medicaid. These are the people who Republicans and Democrats in the past have tried to protect. Now, we are being cruel and dismissive of their needs.

One in five Medicaid enrollees has a disability. Two-thirds of Medicaid enrollees do not receive SSI benefits.

Mr. Speaker, 10.3 million people would lose Medicaid coverage in the next 10 years if the budget reconciliation bill of the Republicans passes because of its punitive work requirements. Most of these people are already working.

In 2022, Medicaid covered two-thirds of all home-care spending. 4.5 million people receive Medicaid-covered home-care services each year in America.

Medicaid cuts as proposed under the Republican budget threaten optional benefits the most, including long-term services and supports that help the disabled and the elderly in home- and community-based services that help protect these Americans who need our help. They live with disabilities in their own communities and get the support, love, and affection of those communities and their families.

In California alone, almost 15 million Californians are on Medicaid. 1,906,300 Californians on Medicaid have a disability. Of those, 992,000 people are working, aged 19 to 65. A million people in California with disabilities who get Medicaid are working, and now they are going to be forced to go through a bureaucracy that supposedly the majority wants to make more efficient. That is not efficiency. That is cruelty to the least amongst us.

Mr. Speaker, 68 percent of California adults on Medicaid have a job. In just my district, which is the fifth wealthiest district in the House, 131,634 people are on Medicaid and are at risk of losing care under the Republican budget. 45,916 of those are children, 19,000 are seniors, 10,000 are people with disabilities, 48,300 adults are on Medicaid due to ACA expansion.

Mr. Speaker, this is madness. I thank my colleague for bringing this to the floor, and I thank her for her spirit and her personal testimony to what this will mean to millions of Americans who are the least amongst us.

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