Cuts to Medicaid Could Impact More Than 8,000 Arlingtonians

Conservative lawmakers and budget hawks in Congress are considering proposals to reduce the Medicaid budget by billions of dollars through spending caps, funding cuts, and work requirements. While the exact form these Medicaid budget reductions would take is yet to be determined, the impact on Virginia is already clear: more than 630,000 low-income Virginians will likely be disenrolled from the lifesaving program - including at least 8,100 Arlington residents.

This is because Virginia is one of nine states that passed a so-called “trigger law” along with its Medicaid Expansion in 2018, which guaranteed enrollment to adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level (about $20,780/year). If federal funding falls below the 90% level promised under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Virginia’s Medicaid expansion will automatically roll back to only 38% of the federal poverty level for parents and disenroll childless adults altogether.

The potential disenrollment of more than 630,000 of the poorest people in Virginia would be in addition to the more than 500,000 who were already kicked off of Medicaid under the Biden administration’s policy of Medicaid Unwinding. These cruel and heartless Medicaid cuts in the name of “fiscal responsibility” would reverse years of positive health impacts resulting from Medicaid expansion, including reduced maternal and infant mortality, earlier diagnosis of cancer and chronic conditions, increased access to mental health care, and decreases in overall mortality. They are also exactly the wrong direction for our country. We should not be cutting Medicaid funding, but rather expanding Medicare and Medicaid to cover everyone in the country through Medicare For All.

No country that sentences its poorest citizens to suffer and die from untreated illness and injury can ever be great. If we truly want to “make America healthy again,” we need universal single-payer health coverage that guarantees healthcare for all - as a human right.

Please join us in the campaign for Medicare For All at linkr.ee/ArlingtonM4A.