Spokane-area Medicaid recipient asks: “Are we just left to die?”
SPOKANE, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), senior member of the Senate Finance Committee and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, held a roundtable with Spokane-area health care professionals and patients to discuss the harms that would result from proposed cuts to Medicaid.
“Federally Qualified Health Centers like CHAS in this district receive 44% of their money from Medicaid,” said Sen. Cantwell. “What would you do if Medicaid was devastated? You just wouldn’t be here.”
“If I can make a point to get it out to the White House and [President Trump’s] people, that people on Medicare and Medicaid can’t afford these [cuts],” said Spokane resident and Medicaid recipient Gail Halverson. “People are going to be sick, and they’re going to have to go to nursing homes — well who’s going to pay for the nursing homes? That’s Medicare, that’s Medicaid! So, are we just left to die?”
Julie Sparkman, a Spokane-area home care provider, also spoke at the event. Sparkman nearly lost her four-month-old grandson because of grave injuries from a car accident, but he was able to recover in a local pediatric ICU. “If these rural hospitals go away, if those beds go away … what happened for my grandson will stop happening for my community members and I don’t want that,” said Sparkman. “If there’s no beds, there’s no beds. It doesn’t matter what medical [coverage] they have. We have these systems in place in the middle of the worst moments of our lives. Because of Medicaid, no one came in and asked my daughter how she was going to pay for that. This is not a system that we can afford to let go of by accident when it took us so long to build it on purpose.”
“These are our neighbors, these are our friends, family, people you work with are relying on this Medicaid program,” said Aaron Wilson, CEO of Spokane’s CHAS Health. “If we’re going to take $880 billion out of the system, these systems fail. And it’s not just our patients, but it’s our staff and it’s everybody across Eastern Washington that are in peril.”
“We don’t have to do this. We just need Americans and Washingtonians to speak up and be loud about this and tell them ‘We’re not cutting Medicaid. We’re not devastating Medicaid,’” said Sen. Cantwell. “Please don’t take something that is the lifeblood of healthcare to our nation and disrupt it all — for what reason? To give a tax break to rich corporations? There’s no reason to do this.”
Desiree Sweeney, CEO of NEW Health, which operates 12 clinics in Northeast Washington, described to Sen. Cantwell the impact Medicaid cuts would have on her operations, and the ripple effect to health care in Spokane.
Sweeney: “If I lost Medicaid I would go from about 15% uninsured … to almost 70% uninsured and the rest of my population is Medicare.”
Sen. Cantwell: “So you’d basically create a health care desert in Northeast Washington.”
Sweeney: “Yes, and so then Spokane gets all my patients.”
On February 25, House Republicans voted to advance President Trump’s budget resolution, which proposes up to an $880 billion cut from Medicaid.
Last month, Sen. Cantwell released a snapshot report highlighting the impact that slashing Medicaid to fund tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy would have on Washington state’s health care system — especially in Central and Eastern Washington.
The snapshot includes new data on the percentage of Medicaid patients in each of the State of Washington’s U.S. congressional districts, as well as by region. In Congressional District 5 (Eastern Washington), 54% of children and 22% of adults are on Medicaid.
The other participants in today’s roundtable were Toni Lodge, CEO of The NATIVE Project; Dr. Jeff Haney, Vice Dean of Clinical Affairs at Washington State University; Amber Waldref, Chair of Spokane Regional Health District Board; Dawn Hall, patient at Providence PACE; and, appearing via remote video, Elisanne McCutchen, patient at NEW Health Springdale Medical.
Video of today’s entire press conference is HERE; video of Sen. Cantwell’s opening statement is HERE; photos are HERE; and a transcript of Sen. Cantwell’s opening statement is HERE.
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