We need Medicaid more than billionaires need tax cuts

When I was growing up, I was taught that only lazy people asked for "handouts" from the government in hard times.

But I've learned public assistance isn't a handout at all — it's a service our tax dollars pay for. We purchase these promises in good times so we have something for rainy days. And let's face it, almost all of us have days when we need help.

I work in the beauty business, and making people look and feel fabulous is my passion. Even more important to me is my family — including my husband, who recently suffered a stroke and is in a long recovery process, and my son, who has autism and needs a high level of support.

I own my own salon, but as a small business owner I don't make enough to meet my family's significant health needs. So, I was overjoyed to learn that I qualified for Medicaid — so my child could get his speech, occupational and physical therapy, and my husband could get the same. My health issues, too — and my unaffordable prescriptions — can finally also be addressed.

My husband and I have paid into the system our whole lives and I'm grateful it's there to help us now that we need it. The hoops, the bureaucracy, the benefits that ought to be more generous can get frustrating, but we're making it work. We couldn't survive without it.

But now, the new administration and Republicans in Congress want to gut Medicaid, spending our tax dollars on tax cuts for billionaires instead of life-saving health care for regular families.

The House Republican budget blueprint calls for stealing, over nine years, $880 billion out of Medicaid to help pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the richest people in the country. That will pay for a lot of champagne aboard million-dollar yachts, but at the expense of my family's health.

Nationally, 72 million Americans rely on Medicaid. It's the nation's largest health insurer. It pays for in-home care and 60 percent of nursing home care. It covers dental, vision and hearing care for seniors. It helps people with disabilities like my child and my husband get care.

Further, nearly 13 million Americans are dually enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare, so cuts to Medicaid are also cuts to Medicare.

In North Carolina, where I live, 2.7 million people are enrolled in Medicaid and its State Children's Health Insurance Program. Yet our Republican representatives in the districts with the most Medicaid need voted for the House GOP budget plan that would eviscerate the program.

The same is true for other deep red districts across the country, which have some of the highest Medicaid enrollment rates.

They say they want to end "waste, fraud, and abuse." But no rational person would believe that Medicaid has nearly $1 trillion in waste. There is an estimated improper payment rate of just 5 percent, and likely most of that is simply because of paperwork that is missing or filled out incorrectly.

Republicans also want to tie receiving life-saving healthcare to stringent work requirements. But 92 percent of working-age, able-bodied adults who receive Medicaid already work — or else are not able to work due to caretaking responsibilities, illness or disability, or attending school.

Attaching work requirements to a basic human need isn't just questionable morally — it's also ineffective, because those who can work are already working. What it will do instead is create such an administrative burden on enrollees and states that millions of people will simply lose coverage.

Listen up lawmakers. We are hard-working people, making the world more beautiful and trying to get health care for our families. How do you justify taking that away just to line the pockets of billionaires?

It's high time you fought for us, not against us.

About Raven MacFarlane-Bradbrook

Raven MacFarlane-Bradbrook is a salon owner and Medicaid advocate from Greensboro, North Carolina. This op-ed was produced in partnership with the Working Class Storyteller and distributed by OtherWords.org.