Medicaid and Memorial Day

This Memorial Day, one of the veterans I’m remembering is my grandmother. Along with her twin brother, she joined up to fight the Nazis. As part of the Women’s Army Corps, my grandmother used her artistic training to draw meticulous, intricate maps of the terrain G.I.s would have to fight through.

I don’t own any of my grandmother’s sketches. By the time I was forming memories, arthritis had robbed her of much of her ability to draw. She ended her days in a nursing home, reliant on Medicaid: like many other veterans, she needed the intensive, ongoing care that only Medicaid provides.

The big bad federal appropriations bill currently under consideration in the Senate makes drastic cuts to Medicaid. It would rob people like my grandmother of the support they need to live out their days with dignity. Many active-duty members of the armed forces rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to provide healthy food for their families—but the appropriations bill cuts SNAP funding. Ironically, some folks who want to use SNAP aren’t eligible because the army has offered them Basic Assistance for Housing; the bill won’t close that loophole, either.

Adding further insult to injury, the appropriations bill would make it easier for for-profit colleges to scam veterans, scooping up G.I. Bill funds without providing meaningful job training. (Perhaps President Trump, who paid more than $25 million to students defrauded by “Trump University,” thinks new educational scams are a good investment.)

But the bill hasn’t passed yet. Ann Arbor Indivisible members rallied for Medicaid on Friday. We’ll keep on pressing our senators to do their jobs and stand up for ordinary Americans—which means standing up for the folks we’re asking to give their lives for our country.

Ready to rally for ordinary Americans with us?

Join Ann Arbor Indivisible!