BRUTAL: Schweikert, Crane, and Ciscomani Blasted for Lying About Cutting Medicaid for Hundreds of Thousands of Arizonans

Schweikert, Crane, and Ciscomani’s “budget helps billionaires at working people’s expense”

Vulnerable Arizona Republicans David Schweikert, Eli Crane, and Juan Ciscomani are feeling the heat after voting to advance the largest cuts to Medicaid in history.

Arizonans are seeing widespread coverage of how an estimated 300,000 of their neighbors could lose health care under the Arizona Republicans’ plan to fund tax cuts for billionaires off the backs of working families.

Here’s what Arizonans are reading…

Arizona Republic: Arizona Republicans in Congress Are Doing Exactly What They Said They Wouldn’t | Opinion

• All of Arizona’s Republicans members of Congress have voted to move forward with a budget package that… would require drastic cuts to Medicaid and other programs.

• While Republicans like… David Schweikert, Eli Crane… and Juan Ciscomani preach of cutting the deficit, the budget for now would add trillions to the national debt.

• At the same time, what’s offered so far provides enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest among us and those elite friends of the president in the billionaire class.

• When the bill got to the House, Schweikert railed about how it “functionally adds” nearly $7 trillion to the budget, adding, “And you wonder why some of us are cranky when our colleagues down the hall give us basically crap to work with.” [Schweikert has] voted to move it forward.

• In our state, federal funding makes up a big part of our Medicaid expansion program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which provides service to more than two million Arizonans. Nearly 800,000 are under 18. More than 125,000 are over 65.

• Arizona is also one of nine states with a so-called “trigger law.” In our case, the state would automatically repeal our Medicaid expansion program if federal funding drops below 80%.

• A new study says as many as 300,000 Arizonans could lose health care under the Republican bill.

• Hundreds of concerned citizens gathered outside Republican Rep. David Schweikert’s office in North Scottsdale on Monday, urging the congressman to protect Medicaid, a government funded program that provides health insurance for one in four Arizonans.

• The protests have been ongoing for 13 consecutive weeks.

• “We want him to listen to his constituents, not the billionaire class, but the people who actually put him in office. And those are us, the people who are here today,” said Linda Somo, a 79-year-old retiree and president of the AARA.

• Nearly 2 million Arizonans rely on Medicaid for coverage, including over 156,000 living in Schweikert’s district. About 250,000 Arizona seniors enrolled in Medicare also rely on Medicaid, often to help cover the cost of nursing homes or at-home care. More than 14,000 of these seniors live in Schweikert’s district.

• The weekly demonstrations outside Schweikert’s North Scottsdale office have drawn an intergenerational crowd—from 20-year-old students to 70-year-old retirees—who live in the district and want him to oppose any cuts to Medicaid.

Copper Courier: Republicans’ Medicaid cuts pit working Arizonans against the ultra wealthy

• Some of Lee’s patients could soon lose their coverage, however, under a bill being pushed by Republicans in Congress, which calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for tax cuts that primarily benefit corporations and the very wealthy.

• Lee believes the proposal could lead to the collapse of Arizona’s healthcare system and leave the vulnerable communities she treats without essential care.

• Medicaid funds about 46% of all births in Arizona and covers one in five women of reproductive age in the US.

• Advocates are worried that this new rule will only cause confusion and potentially cut people off from the program.

• Many rural hospitals depend on Medicaid funding. Without it, hospitals in rural communities like Yuma or Wickenburg might be forced to close their doors, and patients will have to travel miles to receive any type of care.

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