As the fallout continues from the impact of the GOP's spending and tax cut plan on Medicaid, watching closely are the families that rely on the government program for life-changing care.
Like so many people juggling the demands of raising a young family in 2019, Lindsay Sulzer needed to know little about the world of government-funded healthcare safety nets.
“I may not have even really, you know, remembered which one is Medicaid and which one is Medicare to be honest,” Sulzer said.
That changed in an instant in 2020 when her nearly four-year-old daughter Livie suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was hit by a falling branch in a freak accident.
“Medicaid has made a huge difference in our lives it really has been a lifeline,” Sulzer said.
A point they made directly to lawmakers considering the future of the program by traveling to Washington with her husband and Livie and meeting with, among others, Senator Jon Husted and the staff of Senator Bernie Moreno.
“We felt that our story could help highlight what Medicaid does and why it’s so important,” Sulzer said
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill reduces federal Medicaid funding by a trillion dollars and could increase the number of uninsured by close to 12 million. Something Senator Bernie Moreno said he takes issue with.
“A lot of misinformation about Medicaid, not from you but certainly a lot of my Democrat colleagues, so let me give you some statistics if you look at the 10-year budget window, we're increasing Medicaid by 20 percent. So think about what I just said. Even though you hear on the news we're gutting Medicaid, we're cutting Medicaid, we're spending 20 percent more on Medicaid over the next 10 years than we would have without this bill,” Moreno.
In addition, Senators Moreno and Husted said that because of a change in the state provider tax, Ohio will end up getting more than it has ever had in Medicaid funding. The Sulzers hope that is the case. In the meantime, they’ll continue to watch and wait.
“We don’t know if she’ll be affected at all, but certainly I think some people with disabilities will be affected,” Sulzer said.
However, Husted said people with disabilities wouldn't be affected.
“There’s nothing in this bill that would impact them. As a matter of fact in Ohio things are going to get better not worse. Look when I visited with those families, my heart it goes out to them. There experiencing some really difficult circumstances and to me I’ll fight for them, I’ll fight to make sure that the people who have children who, their families can’t make it without it. We want to make sure that that care and services are there for them in the long run,” Husted said.
