In at this time’s dystopia, on the similar time Republicans passed legislation to minimize greater than $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 Kids’s Nationwide Hospital in Washington, D.C., to spend time with sick youngsters, according to USA Today.
On a day mother and father, caretakers, medical doctors and nurses nervous greater than ever about the way forward for well being care protection, she visited a hospital that cares for infants and kids by Medicaid (amongst different forms of medical health insurance).
At Kids’s Nationwide, the primary girl talked with the youngsters, introduced items, did Fourth of July crafts with them and adorned the hospital backyard.
On every other day, this go to can be… positive, however the timing is questionable at finest — and merciless at worst — because the so-called Large Stunning Invoice which is predicted to take away health care coverage from upwards of 12 million people, makes its solution to President Donald Trump’s desk for him to signal into legislation.
According to reporting from The 19th, $1 trillion {dollars} shall be minimize from Medicaid and the Kids’s Well being Insurance coverage Program as a part of the invoice.
Whereas every program has totally different eligibility necessities and protection areas, they typically 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 tens of millions of youngsters. Roughly 37 million children at the moment get their well being care by Medicaid or CHIP, and Medicaid is “the one largest healthcare insurer for kids,” the Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia states on its website.
Medicaid and CHIP cowl preventive health care for infants and youngsters to allow them to keep nicely 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 children with most cancers are lined by Medicaid).
Medicaid additionally covers well being take care of 99% of children in foster care and offers medical health insurance for 80% of children in poverty.
Andrew Harnik by way of Getty Pictures
Past taking away Medicaid from tens of millions, the well being care cuts within the “huge, stunning invoice” are anticipated to affect particular person hospitals — significantly in rural areas — that now could face closures as they take care of monetary points on account of the lack of Medicaid funding. So, the place will the youngsters 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 middle of the Medicaid modifications, plenty of people are worried about what the funding cuts imply for the future of their children’s health. And the way may they not?
Price range cuts to well being care applications which are in place to maintain kids and their households wholesome definitely aren’t going to “Make America Wholesome Once more,” the purported aim of Well being and Human Companies 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 Wholesome Once more.”
It’d be good to suppose that the primary girl’s go to to Kids’s Nationwide Hospital wasn’t deliberately merciless, particularly as tens of millions of Individuals fear about paying for his or her future physician’s visits. (Hey, maybe, like her husband, she didn’t notice there have been Medicaid cuts within the invoice.) However with a track record of wearing a jacket imprinted with “I actually don’t care, do u?” it’s onerous to present her the advantage of the doubt.
