Gop Tax Scam Hurts Everyone

Floor Speech

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Ms. TOKUDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a warning--no, a plea.

Rural America is already in crisis. People there die younger. Mothers face greater risks when giving birth. Hospitals teeter on the edge of collapse.

Medicaid is the thin lifeline holding together that fragile system. Cut it and people will die.

At Adventist Health Castle in Kailua, 75 percent of patients rely on Medicaid and Medicare. They have already weathered the storm of COVID. With new GOP-led cuts to provider fees, they may be forced to shut down essential services--obstetrics, pediatrics, and emergency services, care that literally keeps babies and people alive.

This is not just about one hospital in Hawaii. This is a national crisis. Rural Americans face significantly worse health outcomes and health disparities. In too many rural counties, life expectancy is a decade shorter than that of their urban neighbors.

Maternal mortality in rural areas is nearly double that of urban areas, and more than 200 rural hospitals have closed their doors since 2005. Over 450 more are currently at risk of shutting their doors.

This isn't hypothetical. It is happening right now. Let's be clear: When these providers and hospitals close their doors, everyone in those communities, including, by the way, some Members of Congress and their families, will lose their healthcare. It won't bring me or anyone impacted any comfort or peace to say, ``I told you so.''

Suma Metla, a pediatric physical therapist and mom, treats kids with complex needs. Forty percent of her patients are on Medicaid. She told me plainly, as she sat in my office today with her 1-year-old, Kashi: If these cuts pass, we will not survive past this year.

Already, speech therapists and other specialists are shutting their doors in Hawaii and across the country. Her own practice is buried in a 2-week backlog. One of two hospitals that offer similar care, and we only have two throughout the State, has a 100-child waiting list right now.

Suma has traveled to Lanai to treat children no one else could reach. She tried to keep care going through telehealth, but when Congress let those tools expire, families were left stranded.

Let's talk about the preschool teacher in my district whose son was born weighing less than 2 pounds--5 months in the NICU, emergency surgery, feeding tubes, with a hospital bill 50 times more than she will make in a single year covered by Medicaid.

That little boy is now 3 years old, full of life, laughter, and love and obsessed with music and trucks. He is alive only because Medicaid was there.

We cannot forget what is at stake. These are not just numbers on a page. They are real lives, real children, real families, and real communities, people like you and me.

Slashing Medicaid won't balance a budget. It will close hospital doors. It will rip care from those who need it most. It will end lives.

We must not let this happen. Find the courage. Have a conscience. Vote ``no.''

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