[NFB-NM] FW: [Nfbnet-members-list] Legislative Alert - Medicaid - 6/28/2017

[Tonia Trapp]

From: NFBNet-Members-List [mailto:nfbnet-members-list-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Pare, John via NFBNet-Members-List
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 4:40 PM
To: nfbnet-members-list at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Nfbnet-members-list] Legislative Alert - Medicaid - 6/28/2017

 

 
Dear Fellow Federationists:
 
I know you have already been busy contacting your representatives and
senators about our legislative issues, but I want to add one more item to
the list of topics you should discuss with them. I am sure you are aware of
the debate that is currently taking place regarding our nation’s healthcare
system. The House has voted on its proposal, called the American Health Care
Act,  but the Senate has not yet done so. A vote was scheduled for this
week, but it was announced yesterday afternoon that it would be postponed. A
vote on the Senate healthcare proposal, the Better Care Reconciliation act,
will take place following the July 4 legislative recess.
 
The healthcare proposals currently being considered would devastate the
Medicaid program, upon which thousands of blind people rely to meet their
healthcare needs. Since we now have the opportunity to speak to our senators
while they are in their districts over the July 4 recess, prior to them
voting on the Better Care Reconciliation Act, we should urge them to vote
against any cuts to Medicaid and to protect the blind Americans who depend
on this program.
 
President Riccobono wrote an excellent op-ed about this issue, which was
published in The Hill recently. At press time, the details of the Better
Care Reconciliation Act were not known, so the piece only specifically
mentions the House’s American Healthcare Act and the budget that has been
proposed by the White House. However, we now know that the Medicaid cuts
proposed in the Senate bill are every bit as bad as those proposed in the
House bill and the administration’s proposed budget. Please read President
Riccobono’s  op-ed for a thorough explanation of the devastating impact
these proposed cuts would have. It is pasted below for your convenience.
Then call or email your senators and tell them to vote against Medicaid
cuts.
 
The best way to contact your member of Congress is to call the Capitol
Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for the office in question. Emailing
your member of Congress is also a good idea. If you do so, please copy
JPare at nfb.org.
 
Saving Medicaid is critical to America’s blind
Mark A. Riccobono
The Hill – 6/23/2017
 
For more than fifty years Medicaid has provided much-needed security and
stability to some of America’s most disempowered people. Especially for
people with disabilities, Medicaid has been and remains an essential
lifeline. That lifeline is under attack in the form of Draconian cuts
proposed by both the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and the current
administration’s proposed budget. These cuts would, without exaggeration,
upend millions of lives.
 
One community in particular – the blind – would be disproportionately and
negatively affected if the more than $1 trillion in proposed Medicaid cuts
came to fruition. According to an analysis of the cuts, upwards of seven
hundred thousand people with disabilities would lose access to health
insurance as a result of cuts to Medicaid. Based on the ratio of blind
people currently using Medicaid relative to the total population of disabled
people using Medicaid, more than one hundred thousand blind people would
lose insurance, making these proposed cuts a potential catastrophe for blind
people everywhere.
 
The National Federation of the Blind, the oldest and largest nationwide
organization of blind people in the United States, strongly and
unequivocally opposes cuts to Medicaid. These proposed cuts would undermine
the security, stability, and prosperity of more than one hundred thousand
blind people in this country. This is an untenable prospect and we
categorically reject it.  
Whether it is a poverty rate twice the national average or an employment
rate less than half the national level, the blind already face significant
challenges in attaining the American dream. To strip health insurance from
so many blind people would serve only to erect additional barriers and
obstacles to our efforts to achieve that dream. Blind households would
suddenly face drastically higher costs and strained budgets, exacerbating
the preexisting challenges of high poverty and low employment.
 
Medicaid, which provides insurance to an estimated 1.4 million blind people,
is a vital component of our continuing effort to promote opportunity and
prosperity in our community. We thus call upon members of the United States
Senate to oppose any bill that proposes cuts to Medicaid of the type
contained in the AHCA and the current administration’s budget. We especially
call upon the senators from the eleven states in which at least 40 percent
of people with disabilities rely on Medicaid for health insurance to vote no
on any legislation that would imperil the economic stability and family
security of their blind constituents. Namely, senators from the states of
California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New
Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia should join us in
opposing any cuts to Medicaid. To vote in favor of such cuts would be to
resign tens of thousands of blind people to a life of economic uncertainty
and hardship.
 
When President Lyndon B. Johnson and former President Harry S. Truman stood
alongside each other to commemorate the passage of the Social Security
Amendments Act of 1965, the legislation that established both Medicare and
Medicaid, it was clear that something historic and revolutionary had just
happened. By extending access to health insurance to those who may not have
access to it otherwise, Congress codified the idea that health insurance is
an indispensable element of economic security and made it a reality. As a
result, since 1965, millions of blind Americans have been able to live more
stable and productive lives. To fundamentally undermine the Medicaid program
would be to substantially roll back much of that progress. We sincerely hope
that the Congress of today, and the Senate will not dishonor the legacy of
its forbearers and in doing so, make it harder for we in the blind community
to live the kind of lives we want.
 
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/339073-saving-medicaid-is-
critical-to-americas-blind?rnd=1498230931 
 
John Paré
(410) 659-9314 x 2218
National Federation of the Blind
 
 

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