U.S. Sens. Rueben Gallego and Mark Kelly sounded the alarm about Republican plans to slash Medicaid health care funding, telling attendees at a town hall in Scottsdale that working-class Arizonans will be devastated if voters don’t get engaged and apply pressure now.
Kelly said that the “real stories” of those who will be directly harmed by the cuts that President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans will pursue — a “high probability,” in his estimation — to offset the cost of tax cuts are the most powerful weapons that voters have.
Gallego said that voters have to give Republicans in Congress a reason to break with Trump.
“You have to make them fear the voter more than they fear Trump,” Gallego said. “That’s the only thing they understand.”
The senators spoke with constituents Monday at a healthcare facility in Scottsdale about concerns that Republicans have Medicaid in their sights.
House Republicans passed a budget resolution last week that directs the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut at least $880 billion from programs under its jurisdiction — of which Medicaid is by far the largest.
Republicans have said that they have no intention of cutting the program, but Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump to dramatically reshape the federal government and eliminate social safety net spending that conservatives have long opposed calls for deep cuts to Medicaid.
The town hall was held at the NOAH Cholla Health Center, a facility that Gallego and Kelly said would likely face closure if cuts to Medicaid happen. Many of the facility’s patients are enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCCS, the state’s Medicaid program. Others have health coverage through Medicare, which provides services for older Americans.
“The thing we are talking about today hasn’t happened yet,” Kelly stressed to the audience, but he and Gallego said it was important for people to get engaged now instead of waiting.
An estimated 600,000 people in Arizona alone could lose medical coverage if Medicaid is cut by one-third, the scenario that GOP lawmakers have been currently proposing. As of February, there were 2 million people in Arizona, more than 20% of the people in the state, enrolled in AHCCCS.
If those cuts go into effect, approximately 47,000 rural residents would lose their health coverage, as would 190,000 children. More than 1 in 6 seniors would lose nursing home care.
Approximately 116,800 Native Americans in Arizona are enrolled in the American Indian Health services plan through AHCCCS that would also see a cut under the proposal.
“These are largely working class Arizonans,” Gallego said. “If they could afford their own health insurance, they would do that.”
Both Gallego and Kelly warned that, if the cuts take place, the use of emergency rooms will go up as people will likely put off care for longer, leading to worse outcomes and worse conditions.
Both men said that it will take public pressure to make Republicans not vote on a proposal to cut Medicaid funding and pushed back against those in the audience who voiced concerns about working with Republicans. Polling has been showing that voters are increasingly wanting Democratic politicians to fight Trump policies as opposed to compromise.
“They fight dirty and we’re not willing to get in the mud with them,” Marcos Castillo with Protect Our Care said to the two Senators to cheers from the audience. “Maybe it is time we start getting in the mud with them.”
Others in attendance thought making phone calls, talking to their friends and encouraging Republicans to vote no wasn’t enough.
“We can’t wait. How do we prepare?” Quianna Brown, the mother of a foster child with special medical needs said to Gallego and Kelly. “Would you mind telling your colleagues in Washington they’re burning down this house while there are people still inside?”
Both Gallego and Kelly said they felt for her and her husband’s concerns but reiterated that there needs to be a “grassroots” movement of people putting pressure on lawmakers to vote to not cut Medicaid funding.
“There is nothing happening in this country that says ‘we need to cut Medicare,’” Gallego said. “We need to fight them down, we need to grind them down.”
