Whitmer: Republican Medicaid cuts will be detrimental for Michiganders

BY BEN SOLIS, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

LANSING—Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday evening that the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives’ budget bill—which passed Thursday morning—would have disastrous consequences for 2.6 million Michiganders.

The dire message came during a virtual press call organized by the Democratic Governors Association on Wednesday. Whitmer was joined by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The call was meant to highlight the potentially damaging effects of making deep cuts to Medicaid, which has been a part of ongoing negotiations among Republican appropriators in the U.S. House of Representatives. Each member of Michigan’s Republican congressional delegation voted for the bill, while the Democratic members of the delegation voted against it.

Whitmer said that among the 2.6 million Michiganders who could lose access to their coverage if the cuts go through, nearly one million were children.

“They’re our neighbors. They’re people who are battling cancer, veterans who served our country, who are disabled, the family next door, and the GOP is rushing to terminate Medicaid coverage for millions of Americans as fast as possible,” Whitmer said. “They don’t want us to see all that is contained in that bill, and blasting through these cuts is going to hurt those who can least afford care, and won’t do anything to lower our health care costs. In fact, they’ll rise for everyone.”

Whitmer said the Republican US House budget currently in the works would make some of the largest cuts to Medicaid in the country’s history. She added that the cuts would cause providers to close their doors, a potential lack of available rural health care and a reduction in the quality of medical service in Michigan—on top of the possibility of terminated coverage for children and post-partum women.

“Make no mistake, families in Michigan and all across the country are going to feel the effects of this bill in our day-to-day lives,” Whitmer said. “I’m talking to Michiganders every day. I’m hearing their stories. … We should be working across the aisle to make health care better and easier to afford, kind of like we’ve done here in Michigan.”

Whitmer touted the bipartisan effort to enact the Healthy Michigan Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid to more than a million people. Last year, the state also codified portions of the Affordable Care Act into Michigan.

“We wanted to protect Michiganders with pre-existing conditions and let kids stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26, and we wanted to guarantee essential services and insurance plans,” she said.

If Republicans in Congress truly wanted to see improvements in health costs and help for more families to get coverage, Whitmer said she was all for it and was willing to work with them. But that’s not what the budget bill does, she noted.

“It does the opposite,” Whitmer said. “Families in my state and all across the country are going to pay the price for it, and that’s why we’re together, united, fighting for the people in our country and our ability to get health care.”

Whitmer was asked about US Rep. John James (R-Shelby Township), one of the front runners on the Michigan Republican side of the 2026 gubernatorial race to replace her. James voted to move the bill out of committee and voted for the bill on Thursday. The congressman has been steadfast in his belief that the bill and its cuts to Medicaid would help reduce fraud, waste and abuse.

Michigan’s governor was asked if voters from her state were willing to accept that argument.

Whitmer said that she worked with Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder to expand the state’s Medicaid program when she was the Michigan Senate minority leader before running for governor herself. She said Snyder, a self-professed “nerd” for details, understood the math involved and what it meant to have access to these types of programs.

“It motivated him to work across the aisle. Almost a million people in Michigan got health care because of that work,” Whitmer said. “It is shocking to me that we are in this moment where if there was one [Republican] congressperson with a backbone from each of our four states, they could single handedly stop this from happening by working together.”

In that vein, she called on James to stand up to his caucus and be a hero.

“He says he wants my job. Well, you know what? I guarantee he doesn’t want it if he’s throwing 700,000 people off of health care in the state, running hospitals into the ground,” Whitmer said. “He could be a hero here. … Michiganders expect and want leaders who are going to put their interests first. And so this talking point about fraud, we’re all against fraud; 100 percent of us are against fraud, and we know there’s always more ways that we can help find some savings and make government work better. But that’s not what this bill is all about. This bill is about terminating healthcare for Americans in order to pay for a tax break for the ultra wealthy.”

READ MORE: What happens when Congress slashes Medicaid? Ask a Michigan mom.

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.