Rockland residents and healthcare union members faced bitter cold in front of Rep. Mike Lawler’s Pearl River office Wednesday, calling for him to keep his promise to protect New Yorkers’ essential health care coverage by opposing cuts to Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act.
They joined hundreds of health care advocates and union members holding “Hands off Medicaid” rallies in front of Republican representatives’ offices across the country. Advocates are pushing them to prevent possible efforts by president-elect Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and others to cut federal Medicaid funding. States also contribute to Medicaid.
Affordable health care rights group Protect Our Care, which organized the rallies, says Medicaid is the largest health insurance program in the country, serving over 70 million people with low incomes.
New York’s Medicaid program provided coverage to 7.5 million people as of December 2023, according to the state Health Department. In New York’s 17th district alone, which Lawler represents, around 145,400 people rely on Medicaid for their insurance coverage, according to Protect Our Care.
“Our message is simple: All elected leaders, regardless of your political affiliation, we expect that you will totally reject any cuts to the Medicaid program,” said Milly Silva, Secretary Treasurer of 1199 SEIU, at Wednesday’s rally. “It is a lifeline for 7 million New Yorkers, half of our state’s children, half of all people with disabilities and the majority of nursing home residents.”
A statement on Thursday from Lawler spokesman Nate Soule said this: “Congressman Lawler has been clear that he will not vote for cuts to Social Security or Medicare or against pre-existing conditions protections within the ACA. He will continue to work in a bipartisan way to tackle the issues facing his constituents, as he has consistently. He also wishes the 1199 SEIU, a political organization that wasted millions of dollars in 2024 trying to unseat him, the best.”
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Will Trump, Congress try to repeal or reform Obamacare?
President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, expanding Medicaid eligibility and federal funding for the program. It allowed 40 states to expand Medicaid and other federal public health insurance coverage for those who cannot afford private coverage.
However, Republican leaders have repeatedly attempted to block, repeal or limit the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. In Trump’s first term, he attempted to repeal and replace the law several times. Now, as Trump returns to the White House, he says he again plans to try to reform or improve the act.
Conservative lawmakers have in the past proposed paying for tax cuts with Medicaid cuts, perhaps by converting the program into block grants by state, capping federal funding to the program or reducing federal matching funds for new members.
Such cuts, or a repeal of the Affordable Care Act as a whole, could leave as many as 23 million Americans without health insurance coverage by 2035, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Casandra Chen, a Hudson Valley health care advocate with the Healthcare Education Project, said that many vulnerable people — students, the elderly, people with disabilities, family caregivers and people with mental health issues — risk losing their coverage, having to pay outrageous out-of-pocket costs, and finding it more difficult to enroll or renew their Medicaid coverage.
“When we go to the hospital, there may be fewer staff members to help us,” Chen said. “We may experience longer wait times and the services we need for mental health, maternal health care and other outpatient care services could all be gone, if you can find a hospital to go to at all.”
The Rev. Peter Cook, executive director of the New York State Council of Churches, said the recent presidential election showed that many people are worried about increased costs.
“It’s really quite incredible to me that any politician, no matter what their political party, would be spending any time at all trying to figure out how to increase the cost burden on the constituents who they represent,” said Cook. “You shouldn’t be sitting there figuring out how to cut Medicaid. You should be sitting there figuring out how to strengthen it, how to broaden it, how to make it better.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said at an October rally in Pennsylvania that reforming and cutting parts of the Affordable Care Act would be part of an aggressive first 100-days agenda if Republicans won the House, according to CNN.
Trump said in October that he and his eventual pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would “make the Affordable Care Act better” and “protect women” with new initiatives, ABC News reported.
It’s up to states whether to expand their Medicaid programs under ACA
Each state runs its own Medicaid program, but all state programs are required to follow federal guidelines.
By contrast, Medicare is a health insurance program for people ages 65 and older and some younger patients with specific disabilities. Medicare is a strictly federal program and has the same standard of care across all states.
The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid so that nearly all adults in the U.S. with incomes up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level, or around $20,783 for a single resident, are able to access Medicaid.
In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not force states to expand their Medicaid programs, so it became the responsibility of each state to expand its own program.
As of 2024, 10 states had declined to expand their Medicaid programs based on federal ACA guidelines: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Lawler has said he won’t take aim at Affordable Care Act
Lawler has promised constituents that he would protect Medicare and Social Security.
“I have not and will never cut Social Security and Medicare. I’ve fought hard to protect these vital programs, which so many of our seniors rely on, and I will continue to fight to ensure they remain strong and sustainable for future generations,” Lawler said in October after opponent Mondaire Jones said Lawler would join efforts to cut entitlements.
Lawler has also stated that he would not try to actively change the Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid.
“I am not working to overturn the Affordable Care Act or allow insurance companies to discriminate against those with preexisting conditions,” he said in October.
Sandra Abegg, a Rockland resident and respiratory therapist at Northern Manor Nursing Home in Nanuet, says she and her fellow union members are counting on Lawler not to touch Medicare or Medicaid funding during his next two-year term.
“I’ve been a respiratory therapist for 19 years and I’ve helped thousands of patients on ventilators during that time,” Abegg said. “My patients depend on Medicare and Medicaid for essential services my colleagues and I are providing. If Congress cuts Medicaid, I know my patients will suffer. Our facilities will be forced to cut services and also staff. When patient to caregiver ratios increase, it becomes impossible to provide the quality care that these residents deserve.”
This article was updated to include a comment from Rep. Mike Lawler’s office.
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