By Dr. TOM SHERMAN
Your health allows you to work at a good–paying job, spend time with your loved ones, and enjoy your well-earned retirement.
But right now the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are jeopardizing the healthcare that makes that possible to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.
They’re threatening to cut programs like Medicare and Social Security, which many Americans spent decades working to pay into.
Quite literally, it would take your money and give it to billionaires. Imagine your world without access to healthcare when you or your loved ones need it.
Imagine further if you had to pay the full cost of that care whenever you did access it. As a doctor, I don’t need all of the studies that have been done to know that people without health insurance are on the whole sicker and die earlier than those with insurance, I have seen it.
With the current cost of healthcare and prescription medicines, folks often go without seeing their doctor, and when they do, they can’t afford the drugs that are prescribed. They bounce in and out of hospitals, emergency rooms, declare bankruptcy, lose their jobs, and eventually may even lose their homes.
I fought hard as a New Hampshire state representative for the expansion of Medicaid because I knew how healthcare coverage can change people’s lives. And now Republicans in Congress are threatening to take that away.
For our oldest and youngest (and most vulnerable) Granite Staters, Medicaid is the top target for the Republican Congress that wants a tax break for corporations and the wealthy. Standard Medicaid covers children, pregnant women, and infant babies and their mothers in low income families as well as the elderly who can’t afford nursing home care.
In New Hampshire, Medicaid expansion covers the poorest of all ages in between, almost all of whom are working but still making salaries as low as $15,000 per year, hardly enough for food, shelter, and to raise a family.
And it’s Medicaid expansion that has covered the cost of mental health and substance use treatment for well over 40,000 New Hampshire residents.
The Trump Administration has also put the healthcare of our honorable veterans at risk by slashing the Veterans Administration by more than 80,000 workers. I trained at the John Cochran VA in St. Louis, and I know all too well what will happen to our veterans when we pull that healthcare rug out from under them.
And for Granite Staters with commercial insurance, either private or through your employer, the Trump administration and the Republican Congress have vowed to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act, including protections that require carriers to insure people with pre-existing illnesses, to cover our children up to age 26, and to reimburse for preventive services like screening.
Access to healthcare is one of the critical pillars of a successful American life, along with housing, education, and a job. President Trump and his Republican Congress are threatening to take yours away. Make no mistake about it, these cuts are not to decrease our national debt or address our federal budget deficit, they are simply the only way that the Republican majority in Congress can achieve the cuts they need to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.
While all of us will pay for that tax break through our wallets, many will pay with their health and their lives. Let’s stand up and make our voices heard now before the damage is done, and our families, friends and neighbors are hurt.
Dr. Tom Sherman, Former NH State Senator,
And gubernatorial candidate,
Rye, NH