Sarah Wendell-Launderville, Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living, and Ed Paquin, Executive Director of Disability Rights Vermont, Vermont's designated protection & advocacy agency for people with disabilities, and Vermont's Mental Health Care Ombudsman, explain that Republican legislation would force states to gut Medicaid coverage for 74 million American working families, children, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans. In Vermont:
• 51,000 Vermonters would lose coverage (30,100 from Medicaid alone, along with 5,800 who are privately insured, and another 15,700 people who buy from the individual market).
• $2 billion in new state revenues would need to be raised in the next 10 years or coverage for the 206,000 Vermonters on Medicaid would need to be reduced or eliminated.
• Vermont’s ability to respond to health emergencies like the current opioid crisis would be crippled.
The latest Republican "health care" bill would radically restructure Medicaid funding, cutting federal Medicaid spending by $772 billion over ten years. Republicans would also cut subsidies that help people afford coverage and care in the individual market. Overall, they would cut more than $1.2 trillion from Medicaid and marketplace subsidies driving though the largest transfer of wealth from poor and working families to the wealthiest people and corporations in our nation’s history.