Hospitals Closing And Disabled People Losing Home Care Thanks To Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'
But Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna have a solution. (Surprise! It is taxing billionaires!)
On Monday, Donald Trump excitedly announced on Truth Social that he has stockpiled enough weaponry to allow the United States to fight wars forever and ever and ever, just like all of us definitely want. “More forever wars!” people are always saying.
While he said we have a “virtually unlimited supply” that is better than every other country’s arms supply, he still wants even more weapons of the “highest end.” Nothing but the fanciest gold-plated artillery for our military!
This probably cost us a whole lot of money, and will cost us a whole lot more, but luckily for Trump, his One Big Beautiful Bill cut a trillion dollars from federal support for healthcare.
Unfortunately, this has not worked out quite as well for people who need healthcare. According to a report from CNN, “in northeast Georgia, a hospital closed its maternity ward. In rural New Hampshire, a community health center shuttered. And in Iowa, a Des Moines hospital system laid off dozens of employees and closed a clinic.”
And one thing all of these healthcare facilities have in common is that they’ve cited the Big, Beautiful Bill as a reason for their closures.
While the cuts have not yet gone into effect, these clinics and hospitals have determined that, once they do, they will just no longer be able to afford to operate. Rural hospitals are chronically underfunded and frequently in danger of closing already, and the impending cuts are expediting that process. So many unable to afford health insurance due to the GOP’s refusal to renew the ACA subsidies, plus 7.5 million people being kicked off Medicaid by the end of this year thanks to work requirements and other cuts to the program, will likely be devastating to many hospital systems. Not only does it mean that they will be losing out on patients who won’t be able to afford regular care, they will have so many more people that they will be obligated to treat in emergency rooms regardless of their ability to pay. That is going to be a pretty big expense!
But that’s not all. Americans with disabilities who rely on home care are now getting notifications that they will no longer qualify for these programs, or that they will no longer get as much as they need. In many cases, this kind of home care is the difference between being able to live at home and having to go live in a residential care facility, which will actually cost taxpayers more than the home care costs.
Via Ottumwa Courier:
Sam Walker, 35, has severe autism and other disabilities. He is deaf and cannot speak. Sometimes when he’s frustrated, he hits himself or others.
Medicaid provides about $8,500 a month for health workers who visit his apartment in the basement of his parents’ home. The staffers help him with everyday tasks, including dressing, bathing, and eating. They also take Walker on outings, such as dining at restaurants, volunteering at Goodwill, and exercising at a recreation center or on park trails. They stick to a strict routine, which soothes him. […]
Iowa Total Care, a private insurance company that manages Sam Walker’s Medicaid benefits, intends to cut his in-home care coverage by about $3,200 per month, his mother said. […]
Leisa Walker testified that the state’s Medicaid program would pay about $22,000 per month to put him in an institution, more than double what the program spends on his home care.
Now, that is the platonic ideal of a Republican plan: not merely far less effective and humane than the thing that would actually help would be, but also several times more expensive!
But what if, instead of doing that, we did something that actually helped people?
On Monday, Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna introduced their Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, which would establish an annual five percent tax on billionaires and reverse the damage done to our healthcare system by this Big But Not-So Beautiful Bill. Plus it would give most of us $3,000, which is far more appealing than the literal chopped liver and forever wars that the GOP wants for us all.
Provide a $3,000 direct payment to every man, woman and child in a household making $150,000 or less — $12,000 for a family of four
Reverse the $1.1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts in Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which are estimated to cause more than 50,000 unnecessary deaths
Expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing for millions of seniors
Build, rehabilitate and preserve over seven million affordable homes to eliminate the affordable housing gap and end homelessness
Ensure no family pays more than 7% of their income on childcare
Establish a $60,000 minimum annual salary for every public school teacher in America
Expand Medicaid home health care for seniors and people with disabilities
Not only are these nice things that would be nice to have, and that would make life more livable and pleasant for the vast majority of us. These are fixes for many of the most serious, real problems that Americans are facing right now. More immediate problems, even, than the 47-year-long war we’ve been in with Iran that we didn’t know about until yesterday. They are problems that we cannot afford not to solve, because — as I explained above — in many cases, not solving them is far more expensive than solving them.
If everyone in the country suddenly had the kind of job that currently pays enough to live, literally everything would fall apart, because most of the jobs people do that provide for our everyday conveniences do not pay that much. This is not us making a decision on whether we should give people “a handout or a hand up” — it’s us making a decision about whether we want to function at a very basic level or not.
The senators note that “Under the bill, Elon Musk — worth $833 billion and now wealthier than the bottom 53% of American households combined — would owe $42 billion in taxes, leaving him with approximately $792 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, worth $220 billion, would owe $11 billion. Jeff Bezos, worth $218 billion, would owe approximately $11 billion.”
In other words … they will be just fine. Sorry, but not only should no one person have this much money, but no one person should have the amount of power these motherfuckers have been able to buy with that money. American citizens having healthcare and homes is more important than these people having more money than they could ever possibly spend in their lifetimes, or their children could spend in their lifetimes.
Will this pass right now at this very moment? Probably not. But it’s a damn good idea to keep reminding people what they could have instead of chopped liver.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
<Sorry, but not only should no one person have this much money, but no one person should have the amount of power these motherfuckers have been able to buy with that money.>
It's a greater risk to national security than "Radical Islamic Terrorism", as the last few years have shown us.
>>Elon Musk — worth $833 billion and now wealthier than the bottom 53% of American households combined — would owe $42 billion in taxes, leaving him with approximately $792 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, worth $220 billion, would owe $11 billion. Jeff Bezos, worth $218 billion, would owe approximately $11 billion<<
So, we WON'T eventually run out of other people's money?