Two lawmakers representing the North Bay area gave a preview Friday to preview how potential Medicaid cuts will affect the local health system and residents.
US lawmakers. Mike Thompson, D-ST. Helena and Jared Huffman of D-San Rafael spoke at a health clinic in Santa Rosa and called on colleagues to refuse Medicaid or Medicare cuts as part of a massive spending cut proposed in the recently passed draft federal budget.
They also warned of the potentially worsening impacts of the approximately 83,000 layoffs announced for U.S. Veteran Affairs employees.
The Republican-led House last month passed a draft budget plan that outlines a 10-year cut of $880 billion, by a House committee that sets Medicaid and Medicare funding.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and other Republicans who voted for the draft bill said there will be no Medicaid cuts. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a letter to lawmakers that the committee's spending only shown around $380 billion in spending not allocated to the children's health insurance program known as Medicaid and tips.
This leaves a gap of about $500 billion that the committee will require to reduce, even if all other spending is eliminated.
With that analysis, Thompson and Huffman arranged a hybrid press conference at the Dutton campus of the Santa Rosa Community Health Center. Sonoma County supervisor Linda Hopkins, healthcare providers and advocates also opposed potential Medicaid cuts.
Thompson said about a third of all Californians have health insurance through Medicaid. This is called the state's Medi-Cal. He said one of the counties he represents has more than half of the program's residents.
“If you take that kind of money from any county health care system in the United States, one of two things will happen. Healthcare will be dramatically limited because providers fold or cuts are so severe,” Thompson said.
Huffman said Medicaid cuts will have ripple effects across the healthcare system, leading to what he called the “spillover effect.” He said nurses, people with disabilities, and those who are eligible for Medicaid through the expansion in the Affordable Care Act are examples of people who could lose their insurance if cuts are made to the required level.
He said that if veterans are unable to find proper care, cuts in the veteran workforce would also shake up the larger health system.
“We all have a huge interest in this. We all need to see it coming,” Huffman said.
Hopkins said Medical has paid more than half of her births in California, covering critical prenatal and postnatal care.
Dr. Parker Duncandias, medical director at the Lombardi campus of the Santa Rosa Community Health Center, spoke about a pregnant patient who thought she was perfectly healthy but actually had dangerous blood pressure.
She must give birth early in 38 weeks to prevent the possibility of a child lamp that could cause a seizure, he said.
“Getting access to prenatal care not only saved me from a medical disaster, but probably two lives,” he said. “This is something we all trained. This is our healthcare purpose, to diagnose and treat things early before things get caught up in the emergency room, the system is even more expensive and ultimately the taxpayer,” he said.
Dr. Ginger Schecter, who retired from Chief Medical Officer at Santa Rosa VA Clinic, said veterans with professional medical needs suffer and will affect the entire community health care system.
“With less profits for veterans and staff to take care of them, it will often be a burden on local systems that are already busy and need more staff,” Schector said.
The Republican budget plan calls for an extension of the temporary tax cuts passed in 2017, adding about $4.2 trillion to the federal deficit, according to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis.
To avoid government shutdowns, a spending bill with more detailed cuts must be passed by March 14, unless another temporary spending bill known as a continuing resolution is passed.
