President Donald Trump signed his so-called “One Big ‘Beautiful’ Bill” into law late last Friday, guaranteeing outcomes that will be anything but beautiful. Despite major pushback from constituents across the U.S., members of Congress passed the U.S, budget bill along party lines, 218-214, with only two Republicans voting against it. The bill will force nearly $1 trillion in devastating cuts over ten years to a considerable lifeline for 70 million low-income Americans: Medicaid. 

Medicaid is a federal and state healthcare coverage program providing access to treatment and preventative care for seniors, children, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations since it was introduced in 1965.

California’s Medi-Cal program, over half of which comes from federal Medicaid funding, provides health coverage for 13.4 million people. Many of our rural hospitals and community clinics rely on this safety net for payment to provide much-needed services. This move now leaves them in jeopardy of shutting down or slashing jobs. It will also force the state to raid other important parts of its budget to make up for the federal shortfall. This will impact even public services that do not directly depend on Medicaid.

“This is an attack on working people by stripping away access to healthcare and dignity for those most in need, but we will not back down,” said SEIU 1021 Vice President of Politics Ramsés Teon-Nichols. “Lawmakers who voted for these cuts to Medicaid will face voters as we come back to the ballot box next year and hold them accountable for this disgraceful bill they just passed. This fight is just getting started.”

In a cynical move, the bill reserves the biggest cuts to benefits for after next year’s midterm elections.

Once the cuts kick in, people who lose insurance coverage will lean on emergency rooms for primary care, leading to worse health outcomes and untenable costs for the public hospitals that must serve them regardless of insurance. Seniors will lose access to long-term care (roughly 60% of nursing home patients are covered by Medicaid). Prescription drugs prices could skyrocket. Reduced revenue for public hospitals and clinics will lead to layoffs, which will also worsen working conditions for healthcare workers and services for patients, with longer wait times. The bill will also make cuts to SNAP benefits, increasing hunger and food insecurity for low-income Americans.

“What the Republicans just did is outrageous,” said SEIU President April Verrett. “It’s despicable, it’s immoral, it’s anti-American. But SEIU members will never forget…that children will go hungry because of what they’ve done, that people will suffer because of what they’ve done.”

All this to pay for tax cuts for the richest few totaling an almost equal amount of $1 trillion. 

Gutting Medicaid will hurt children, working people, seniors, and people with disabilities. This fight is personal. The cuts are real. The harm is deadly. Healthcare is a right. We won’t be silent.

SEIU 1021 will not back down until this travesty is reversed. We will take this fight into the next campaign cycle and hold the politicians who put Americans in this dangerous and compromising position accountable. Please join the SEIU California Federal Fightback Townhall this Thursday, July 10, at 6 p.m. to get organizing. Register here.