New Hampshire’s U.S. Senators raise alarms about proposed Congressional GOP Medicaid cuts

MANCHESTER, NH – On Monday, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) assembled a group of healthcare experts, local leaders and other stakeholders to the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester for a discussion on proposed GOP cuts to Medicaid.

In recent days, GOP Congressional leaders have proposed the cuts as part of ongoing federal budget negotiations which also include an estimated $2 trillion in tax cuts over the next ten years.

At the roundtable, several people talked about how the loss of Medicaid would impact their lives as well as how Medicaid has impacted their lives in the past. One of those people was Shawn Cannizzaro, co-owner of Hope2Freedom Recovery Homes LLC. Cannizzaro grew Massachusetts around people on Medicaid, but never thought he would need it even though he spent most of his life battling against drug addiction. Then one day he woke up floating in a pool after an overdose, leading to his eventual treatment in Littleton, NH. Today he helps those who have been through what he went through, with Medicaid playing a large role in that support.

“If I wasn’t able to get on that Medicaid, God knows where I’d be right now,” he said.

Local medical administrators also talked about the importance of Medicaid to their organizations and providing a treatment funding source for low-income residents who might not have any other means to pay for care. One example among many noted was the event’s host organization: the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester, which sees approximately 80 percent of its patients use Medicaid.

In addition to the revenue shortfalls that would arise for these local healthcare organizations, Shaheen also noted that it would be more costly in the long run as the low-income residents unable to obtain routine preventative care would see their minor concerns transform into much more costly emergencies that hospitals have an ethical obligation to treat.

New Hampshire State Representative Laura Telerski (D-Nashua) said that New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte’s proposed state budget also attempts to impact Medicaid access in New Hampshire, exacerbating the problem of low-income Granite Staters opting out of medical treatments until there is no choice.

“When someone is just trying to get basic needs to survive, why would they pay that (insurance) premium when they can’t afford it,” she said. “Uncompensated care will skyrocket and all of us will pay the price for that.”

Hassan and Shaheen were grateful for the stories shared at the roundtable and asked those in attendance to spread the word and ask others to share stories about the importance of Medicaid in their lives their local officials.

The two Senators also criticized U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk and their recent actions randomly downsizing the federal government. While the Senators said that Trump has said he does not want to cut Medicaid, they added that his Republican colleagues as well as the lack of clear communication from his administration make that claim questionable.

“A responsible administration would be thinking through changes in a prospective way, they’d do it with transparency, they’d change programs carefully after analysis. None of that is happening,” said Hassan. “We can’t get clear information from the Trump Administration.”

“It’s clear they have no strategy,” she added.

In past years, Republicans have used the threat of a government shutdown during budget negotiations to exact political concessions. However, they believed Senate Democrats would be unlikely to follow the same tactics in this situation given the significant amount of recent federal layoffs.

“I think the Trump Administration is already shutting down major sections of the government. I don’t think there’s any benefit to people who depend on services to have any further shutdown of the U.S. Government,” said Shaheen. “It is up to Republicans as to whether they are going to further shut down the government or not as they are in complete control of everything in Washington.”