From: Steve Schoettmer
Elizabethtown
Democrats have no choice but to vote against the current spending measure in Congress. We have always tried to be the party that looks out for the working class and the middle class. Sometimes we waiver. Sometimes we fail. But this time it’s clear where Democrats’ priorities are, and where the Republicans’ priorities are.
The Republicans in Congress have gutted funding for our health care. They gave all those savings and more as tax cuts to the rich. The tax cuts and budget cuts took from the least among us so they could shower even more wealth on millionaires and billionaires.
Republican legislators are trying to frame the debate by ludicrously claiming that Democrats are trying to include funding for undocumented immigrants. What they are talking about is the current law, which was a change from the 1980s signed into law by Ronald Reagan. If anyone shows up in an emergency room for treatment, regardless of the ability to pay and regardless of citizenship, they must be treated. This law has not been changed, and Republicans are not trying to change it.
There is a real simple reason for the law. If you are in a car accident and are rushed to the hospital, you don’t want the emergency room to wait to treat you until you can prove your citizenship. Or, let’s say your child has ingested a poison. Do you want to have to dig around through the drawers and find their birth certificate so you can prove citizenship when you get to the hospital before you leave for the ER? No. Of course not. That is the purpose behind the Reagan-era law.
Meanwhile, we have many hospitals in our surrounding counties that will be impacted by the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. This is because the federal money goes to hospitals, especially small town and rural hospitals, to help pay for those people who can’t afford to pay for their care. Without that money, many hospitals will have to close their doors.
The ask being made by Democrats is to add back in those Medicare and Medicaid dollars and keep those rural hospitals open. Republicans have control of all three branches of government. The Republicans pushed through these heartless cuts on rural health care using a tactic that let them ignore the concerns of Senate Democrats. Democrats are trying to use what little leverage they have to restore the money to Hoosier Healthwise and to bring back subsidies that will keep other peoples’ premiums from more than doubling in November.
Republicans want Democrats to sign off on these draconian cuts. The Democrats are, for now, refusing to do that.
If you want to help, call your congressman or your senators (you will notice they are all Republican) and ask them to fund our health care. They need to hear from us and learn that we, the voters they are supposed to be working for, think we still matter.
