This bill is theft on a massive scale of Americans’ healthcare and financial security, while enriching billionaires and radically escalating a repressive police state that threatens the rights and freedoms of all of us.

Cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will be disastrous for our healthcare system. It will cause tens of thousands of Americans to die annually, force healthcare facilities and services to shut down, create longer wait times and higher costs for everyone, and blow gigantic holes in states’ budgets as they try to make up for the loss of critical funding. The loss of tens of thousands of good-paying healthcare jobs will devastate families and disrupt local economies, especially in struggling urban and rural communities.

Republicans nationwide ran on a platform of protecting Medicaid, but out of moral deceit and cowardice they just voted for the largest cut in history. They betrayed every child, every senior, every person with a disability, and every other American who relies on Medicaid for lifesaving care. The consequences are on them.

Voters will not forget how Republicans sold out the health of our communities so they could give tax cuts to themselves and their rich friends.  As a union of 450,000 caregivers who will be on the frontlines of the looming healthcare crisis, we will not stand by while vulnerable patients are abandoned by morally-bankrupt Republican politicians.

Yvonne Armstrong

President, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East

New York, NY