Rep. Melanie Stansbury on GOP Tax Bill: Medicaid Cuts Will Decimate Healthcare

Proposed Medicaid and Healthcare Cuts

• ⚠️ The proposed GOP tax bill includes nearly $1.3 trillion in cuts to the healthcare system over 10 years, according to CBO scoring.
• 🏥 In New Mexico, this could lead to hospital closures, rural health clinic shutdowns, and fewer available private practitioners, as two-thirds of residents rely on Medicaid and Medicare.
• Medicare faces mandatory cuts of half a trillion dollars through sequestration, despite promises from Donald Trump not to cut the program.

Broader Impacts of the Bill

• 🤰 A mandatory abortion ban is included for marketplace health insurance, meaning reproductive care would not be covered.
• 🍎 The bill would cut food assistance, impacting over 18 million children for school lunch programs and potentially causing children to go hungry.
• 📚 Assistance for student loans and education would also be reduced, affecting millions of Americans.

Environmental and Worker Protections

• 🌳 The bill includes decimation of environmental programs and worker protections, opening millions of acres to mandatory oil and gas drilling, mining, and logging.
• 👷‍♂️ Worker protections for federal employees would be cut, making them at-will employees, reducing federal retirement benefits, and increasing their retirement contributions.

Bill's Funding Mechanism and Allegations

• 💰 The bill is funded through cuts to life-saving programs, with specific allocations for kickbacks to oil and gas companies, AI companies, and private prisons.
• 🤝 Stansbury alleges the bill is designed as kickbacks to Donald Trump and his billionaire friends.
• 📉 Tariffs imposed by Donald Trump are already negatively impacting oil and gas drilling in New Mexico, making the mandatory drilling provisions particularly detrimental.