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In a district in Arizona, which voted for Trump 2-to-1, many people rely on Medicaid, would hate to lose it, and are convinced that there are fraud that can be cut off the program.
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Gila County, Arizona, was great for Donald Trump and supported President 2 to 1 in the elections of last year. The district is also very relying on Medicaid, the Federal Health Insurance program that the Republican allies of Trump would like to reduce in the congress. Well, that ensures some complicated feelings for Medicaid. Noam Levey reports with our partner Kff Health News.
NOAM LEVEY: GLOBE, Arizona, is an old Copper Mining City, which is about 90 miles over the Boenix mountains from Phoenix. In the former Zug depot there is a street festival with food trucks and live music every month.
(Soundbite of music)
Levey: I visited to find out what people thought in a conservative place like this about the Medicaid debate in Washington. House Republicans have just promoted a plan to shorten more than 700 billion US dollars from the safety network program.
Can I interrupt you for a second?
Heather Heisler: Sure.
Levey: I am a health reporter from Washington, DC
It was not difficult to find people who were on Medicaid or who knew someone who was. Heather Heisler’s husband has rely on the program for years.
Heisler: We are cattle breeders and there is not much money in the ranch. Most people think there are, but there are no.
Levey: Heisler sold at the Festival Handwerk. She says Medicaid is particularly helpful after her husband had an accident. A forklift tipped over and part of his left foot was amputated.
Heisler: If something happens, he can go to the doctor, he can go into the emergency room and get medication.
Levey: And if he lost the reporting?
Heisler: Oh, we would – it would be very bad for him.
Levey: The GOP legislators want to make some Medicaid participants work requirements and make people submit more paperwork to prove that they are justified. According to the impartial congress office, 10 million people will probably lose the insurance of Medicaid. In Gila County there are almost 4 out of 10 inhabitants on Medicaid and the associated pediatric health insurance program. This is almost twice as high as 15 years ago.
Fernando SHIPLEY: And many people think that is, these are the people who don’t work. Not necessarily.
Levey: Fernando SHIPLEY heads a State Farm Office in the city. He is a city council member and former mayor.
SHIPLEY: If you are a single parent with two children and earn 20 US dollars an hour, you will not make ends meet. You have to pay rent. You have to feed these children.
Levey: The growing meaning of medicaid for places such as Globe, Arizona, helps to explain why congress republicans are exposed to so much resistance to their proposed cuts. Bob Ward asked for a coalition that tried to protect Medicaid. His company also works for Trump.
Bob Ward: There was a change in the public attitude and in particular, you know, the voters that sometimes play a role in making people’s health care, and that’s okay. And if you take away this health care, people will be angry about it.
Levey: Back in Globe I found people who are in order with a few cuts to Medicaid. I met Debbie Cox directly outside the city center in her real estate management office. The squat building takes place from a McDonald’s on a busy street on which trucks roll past every few minutes.
Debbie Cox: Service First Realty. Ok, keep going.
Levey: She made a few calls on a Friday afternoon.
COX: Would you call me next week? Because I have to start and have to carry out a through test.
Levey: Cox has tenants who rely on Medicaid. And in the protection of domestic violence in which Cox is President of the board, she says that the employees always try to enroll women and their children. Nevertheless, she has mixed feelings for the program.
Cox: It’s not that I don’t see the need for it. I literally see the need for this weekly. But I also see the need to revise it considerably because it has been exploited for so long.
Levey: How many people actually use Medicaid and how much waste in the program is hotly discussed. But to pensioner Rick Uhl, the problems feel real. I caught up with him in the Globe Senior Center when he stacked chairs after lunch.
Rick Uhl: There is a lot of waste, money that is not taken into account, and I think that’s a shame.
Levey: In the city center of the fair, I talk to David Sander and his wife Linda about republican plans for Medicaid.
David Sander: I heard that you really don’t cut it. Now some people want to spend more money and they won’t spend that much, but they don’t actually cut back. That is my understanding.
Levey: The Sanders have a neighbor on Medicaid. Linda says the neighbor could not live without the program.
Linda Sander: It couldn’t afford to have an apartment, to make your bills and survive.
Levey: Their fate and the fate of millions of others who rely on Medicaid are now dependent on what the congress in Washington decides 2000 miles away.
In Globe, Arizona, I am Noam Levey.
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