In as we speak’s dystopia, on the similar time Republicans handed laws to lower almost $1 trillion in funding from Medicaid — a well being care program that permits low-income and disabled kids and adults to get the well being care they want — first girl Melania Trump was photographed visiting Youngsters’s Nationwide Hospital in Washington, D.C., to spend time with sick youngsters, in keeping with USA At this time.
On a day mother and father, caretakers, medical doctors and nurses anxious greater than ever about the way forward for well being care protection, she visited a hospital that cares for infants and kids via Medicaid (amongst different kinds of medical health insurance).
At Youngsters’s Nationwide, the primary girl talked with the children, introduced presents, did Fourth of July crafts with them and embellished the hospital backyard.
On every other day, this go to could be… effective, however the timing is questionable at greatest — and merciless at worst — because the so-called Large Lovely Invoice which is anticipated to take away well being care protection from upwards of 12 million individuals, makes its approach to President Donald Trump’s desk for him to signal into legislation.
In accordance with reporting from The nineteenth, $1 trillion {dollars} shall be lower from Medicaid and the Youngsters’s Health Insurance coverage Program as a part of the invoice.
Whereas every program has completely different eligibility necessities and protection areas, they often cowl well being care prices for low-income adults and kids, disabled adults and kids, and others with restricted assets.
Medicaid is a literal lifeline for thousands and thousands of children. Roughly 37 million kids at present get their well being care via Medicaid or CHIP, and Medicaid is “the single largest healthcare insurer for children,” the Youngsters’s Hospital of Philadelphia states on its web site.
Medicaid and CHIP cowl preventive well being care for infants and children to allow them to keep properly and obtain vaccinations, physicals and routine dental care. These well being care applications are additionally there to cowl prices when one thing goes incorrect (1 in 3 kids with most cancers are coated by Medicaid).
Medicaid additionally covers well being look after 99% of kids in foster care and supplies medical health insurance for 80% of youngsters in poverty.
Andrew Harnik through Getty Pictures
Past taking away Medicaid from thousands and thousands, the well being care cuts within the “big, beautiful bill” are anticipated to affect particular person hospitals — notably in rural areas — that now could face closures as they cope with monetary points on account of the lack of Medicaid funding. So, the place will the children who want care in these areas go, whether or not they’re on Medicaid or not?
Whereas work necessities for nondisabled adults are on the heart of the Medicaid adjustments, a lot of individuals are anxious about what the funding cuts imply for the way forward for their kids’s well being. And the way may they not?
Funds cuts to well being care applications which can be in place to maintain kids and their households wholesome definitely aren’t going to “Make America Healthy Again,” the purported objective of Health and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and Donald Trump.
And making a distraction, by means of a hospital go to, from 1 trillion {dollars} of well being care cuts additionally isn’t going to “Make America Healthy Again.”
It’d be good to assume that the primary girl’s go to to Youngsters’s Nationwide Hospital wasn’t deliberately merciless, particularly as thousands and thousands of People fear about paying for his or her future physician’s visits. (Hey, possibly, like her husband, she didn’t understand there have been Medicaid cuts within the invoice.) However with a monitor file of sporting a jacket imprinted with “I really don’t care, do u?” it’s exhausting to present her the advantage of the doubt.
