'We're Going To See People Dying': Adam Schiff Gives Blunt Warning On GOP's Proposed Medicaid Cuts

2 hours ago

During a Medicaid Day of Action press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) spoke about Republicans' proposed $880 billion cuts to Medicaid.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Great American, Adam Schiff.

00:02APPLAUSE

00:08Mike, thank you very much.

00:10Madam Speaker, thank you for bringing us together, both of you,

00:14to shed a light on what is being contemplated by the GOP right now,

00:18which would be absolutely devastating to healthcare around the country,

00:21and most particularly to states like California,

00:24that have so many of our residents who utilize Medicaid

00:28and are reliant on it, or what we call here in California, Medi-Cal.

00:32And I want to pick up where Mike left off, and that is,

00:35I want to start with the already precarious position

00:39of healthcare providers in California.

00:41Hospitals throughout our state are barely struggling to survive.

00:46Many have had to close their doors.

00:49Others have had to curtail important services.

00:52In Madera, California, for example, the hospital shut down.

00:56People may have already died because they can't get to a hospital on time.

01:01That hospital has plans to reopen.

01:03It will reopen, though, without a labor and delivery unit.

01:07This is another recurrent problem throughout much of the state of California.

01:11If California sees a massive cut to Medicaid,

01:16we are going to see a cascading set of closures of hospitals and clinics,

01:21a lack of access for people.

01:23It will be devastating.

01:24And those that will be most hurt will be a lot of poor kids.

01:28It will be a lot of seniors.

01:30It will be a lot of veterans.

01:31It will be a lot of people with disabilities.

01:33It will be just devastating.

01:36And when you consider what they want to make these cuts for,

01:42it's all the more devastating,

01:44because they want to take that $880 billion that Mike talked about,

01:49they want to take that money and more,

01:52and they want to use it to fund a tax cut for corporations and really wealthy people.

01:56That's what it's all about.

01:58All of these doge cuts to essential services,

02:02this slash and burning of the services that Californians rely on,

02:10it's all with one objective,

02:12and that is to find the money to fund a massive tax cut for rich people and large corporations.

02:20And if it means that that pregnant mother doesn't have a hospital to go to for labor and delivery,

02:25too bad for her.

02:26If it means someone with asthma can't get to hospital on time or can't get the treatment,

02:32too bad for them.

02:34It means if a senior is reliant on Medicaid to stay in a skilled nursing facility,

02:42too bad for them.

02:45And that might be easy to say if you're Elon Musk and you're the world's richest man and you can go elsewhere.

02:51But for all the rest of America, it would be just terrible news.

02:58We're going to do everything we can to fight this,

03:04because literally, lives are on the line.

03:07There's no question that if they go through these cuts,

03:12they're contemplating that we're going to see people dying because of it,

03:19all for this tax cut for folks who are already doing really well.

03:24So we're going to fight this,

03:26and I'm grateful that we are here today shining a spotlight on what they're attempting to do,

03:33because they would much prefer to do this in the darkness.

03:36With that, let me introduce Kevin Mullen,

03:39a great representative from the Bay Area,

03:41who represents my old neck of the woods in East Bay,

03:45and thank you for your great service.

'We're Going To See People Dying': Adam Schiff Gives Blunt Warning On GOP's Proposed Medicaid Cuts

Category

Transcript

Recommended