About 100 people turned up at a park in Milford on Tuesday afternoon to rally against potential cuts to Medicaid, the government insurance for low income and disabled people that provides health care for about one-fourth of Michigan’s population.
It was the first in a series of sparsely attended afternoon and evening meetings scheduled around metro Detroit on Tuesday to focus on the passage of a U.S. House Republican-led congressional budget resolution calling for the Committee on Energy and Commerce to cut $880 billion from its budget over the next 10 years.
More: House passes GOP funding bill backed by Trump. Now a showdown looms in Senate.
The committee oversees Medicaid. And while the resolution doesn’t specifically single out Medicaid for cuts, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the Republicans can’t finance their budget cuts unless they cut from Medicaid.
Organizer for Detroit’s Tax Justice Russ Bellant speaks during a Detroit Action Town Hall for those who have been impacted and are concerned by inevitable cuts in Medicaid and SNAP at Faith Redemption Center in Detroit, on Tuesday, March 11, 2024.
The energy and commerce committee’s reductions are among trillions of dollars in cuts in the budget plan that are to be used to fund an extension of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. The U.S. Senate has yet to take up the resolution.
About 72 million people across the nation, or roughly 1 in 4, rely on Medicaid, according to government statistics. Around 2.6 million, or 26%, of Michigan residents rely on Medicaid.
Also the budget resolution calls on the House Committee on Agriculture to cut billions in spending, leaving many concerned the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ― which feeds almost 42 million people — will be part of the cuts if House Republicans get their way.
“You may be here because you’re angry. Maybe you’re a little frustrated … and perhaps, even afraid. But you’re also here because you care,” Sherri Masson, an organizer from Indivisible Huron Valley, which hosted the Milford rally, told people gathered there.
“You care about the sick, the elderly and the children who currently rely on Medicaid and SNAP food programs for survival. We’re here because President Trump, Elon Musk and his MAGA followers … want to cut the federal budget by trillions to give billionaires a tax cut. “
Attendees sign in as they arrive for a Detroit Action Town Hall for residents concerned with inevitable cuts in Medicaid and…
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