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Celerity

(50,944 posts)
Mon Jul 7, 2025, 12:05 PM Jul 7

Families Steel for Fight After GOP Health Care Cuts



https://prospect.org/health/2025-07-07-families-steel-fight-gop-health-care-cuts-medicaid/



Families who rely on Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act for their very survival are regrouping after Republicans passed their deadly bill to cut those programs. The antidote to despair is action, they said, and they called on everyone to step into the fray. One mom, a Michigander who now lives in North Carolina, said she borrows from her favorite football coach, University of Michigan’s Bo Schembechler, who once vowed to undertake at least one action every day to beat Ohio State. “It’s about persistence, it’s about sustained effort,” said Stacy Staggs, 48, an advocate with Little Lobbyists and mom to two preteens, one of whom needs around-the-clock medical care, which Medicaid covers.

Speaking to the Prospect yesterday, Staggs said she long ago gave up feeling shocked that lawmakers could rip benefits away from vulnerable people. “I stopped saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe they’re doing this.’ When you understand this is what they’re planning for, it becomes less shocking and more infuriating.” That shift is animating power she can tap, she said, despite the panic and anxiety that the Republican spending cuts are causing.

“It’s especially important to know that this is actually far from over, although, certainly, the president signing it into law feels very final,” Staggs said. “But there is still a lot of work we can do, a lot of ways we can hopefully strive to influence how these horrifying cuts get implemented … personally I plan to be sand in the gears, I will be the squeaky wheel and whatever other metaphor matches being loud and cranky for as long as it takes.”

Republicans passed cuts to federal funding for Affordable Care Act programs, Medicaid, and even Medicare last week, benefit reductions so devastating to American health care that they’re expected to kick 17 million people off insurance and have already prompted the closure of at least one rural hospital. Curtis Medical Center in Curtis, Nebraska, announced last Wednesday it was closing. “The current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” Troy Bruntz, president and CEO of Community Hospital, said in a press release.

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