Thursday June 1st, 2017

Cortez Masto Promises to Fight Budget Cuts That Would Undermine the Health of Children and Families

Reno, N.V. – Today, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) pledged to protect funding for healthcare programs targeted by the Trump administration, noting that children and families would be hit hardest by the proposed budget cuts.

Trump’s budget plan calls for a $610 billion cut to Medicaid. That comes in addition to the $839 billion cut that would go into effect under the House Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. All told, Trump—who on the campaign trail promised not to cut Medicaid, Social Security, or Medicare—would slash a whopping $1.4 trillion from the program. And the rollbacks don’t stop there. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program that provides low-cost healthcare to families who don’t qualify for Medicaid but still struggle to pay their kids’ medical bills, is slated for a 20% reduction. 

“Children’s healthcare coverage, while not yet at 100%, is at an all-time high in the United States, and programs like Medicaid and CHIP are directly responsible for this progress,” said Cortez Masto.  “Medicaid and CHIP, together, are the source of coverage for 32% of Nevada’s kids with healthcare. If Trump’s budget is passed, many of them will lose that coverage. With no access to preventative care or prescriptions, their parents will be forced to rely solely on the emergency room when the unthinkable happens. We can’t go back to the way things were before the Affordable Care Act was passed.”

In 2013, Nevada’s rate of childhood health care coverage was 51st in the nation—that is, dead last—among all states and Washington, D.C. Under the ACA, Nevada moved to 48th—the biggest improvement in the country. Trump’s budget threatens to wipe out these gains entirely.

Specifically, it would: 

  • CUT more than $1 trillion from Medicaid, a program that provides $3,363,512,975 to Nevada each year to support 592,400 low-income children, adults, seniors, and people with disabilities.
  • CUT  $5.8 billion from CHIP, a program that covered 68,951 of Nevada’s kids in 2016.
  • CUT funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $7 billion—a 22% cut. These programs conduct groundbreaking disease prevention research and support 989 jobs and $31,316,007 in research awards in Nevada.
  • CUT funding for the National Cancer Institute, a subset of the NIH, by $1 billion.
  • CUT funding for the Older Americans Act, which provides $2,426,000 to Nevada annually to support the seniors’ health.
  • CUT funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by $1.3 billion.
  • CUT funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Agency, a key contributor to the fight against the opioid epidemic, by $373 million—a 10% cut.

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