Trump and the GOP are sticking Pennsylvanians with a massive healthcare bill

Earlier this summer, Republicans passed a budget bill that released a wrecking ball on family budgets and the healthcare system Pennsylvanians rely on. When I served as the head of Medicare and Medicaid in the Biden administration, I heard firsthand from so many people how important Medicaid was for their family — people like the Brussards of Cumberland County, who know exactly what these cuts will mean.

When Alex Brussard was just 12 years old, he endured treatment for an inoperable brain tumor. Though the tumor hasn’t returned, the ordeal left him with serious health challenges, including a brain hemorrhage. His mother, Paula, is his round-the-clock caregiver. Medicaid is their lifeline: It covers the treatments and equipment that make Alex’s life possible. Take it away, and their world collapses.

This new budget law sends them — and families like them across Pennsylvania — a devastating message: You’re on your own.

Not only have Republicans cut nearly a trillion dollars in federal Medicaid spending nationwide, but they’re also jacking up costs for hardworking low- and middle-class individuals and families who get their healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, called Pennie in Pennsylvania.

This October, if Republicans in Congress don’t act — and very few of them have signaled that they want to — 20 million people in the U.S. and nearly 400,000 Pennsylvanians who get their healthcare coverage through the ACA marketplace will see their costs increase, placing even more of a strain on their budgets.

These people are often small-business owners, or a family that is playing by the rules and moving up the economic ladder and off Medicaid, who the Republican budget penalizes. A family of four, for example, earning $64,000 a year in Pennsylvania, could see their annual premiums through Pennie increase by $2,571.

This can be the difference between affording childcare and covering rent.

This comes on top of the assault the GOP has already mounted against Medicaid — which insures nearly three million Pennsylvanians. For reference, if you took the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade crowd in February and tripled it, that’s how many people we’re talking about. These are low-income families, children, and the neediest people in our communities whose only access to healthcare is through Medicaid.

The GOP budget passed in July would slash up to $57 billion from Pennsylvania’s healthcare budget over the next 10 years, leaving the state scrambling to clean up the mess Donald Trump and his allies created at the expense of poor and working-class Pennsylvanians.

But the harm GOP actions cause doesn’t stop there.

By standing up massive paperwork requirements for people to get the coverage they’re eligible for, 340,000 Pennsylvanians risk losing their coverage because they mislabeled a form, missed a letter because they moved, or their work didn’t get them the proof of income they needed in time.

And the same goes for Pennsylvanians trying to enroll in Pennie this year, with the new law adding excessive paperwork and hurdles to the marketplace, as well.

We know that going without health coverage is incredibly dangerous to someone’s physical and financial wellbeing.

We know that going without health coverage is incredibly dangerous to someone’s physical and financial well-being. It makes them less likely to seek out care out of fear that the costs will be more harmful to them than the lingering cough, the pain in their abdomen, or the swelling in their ankle.

But when those nagging illnesses and injuries become emergencies, they become more expensive for patients, taxpayers, and the healthcare system alike, and all the “cost-saving measures” due to GOP policies turn into cruel, costly hurdles that could go as far as leading to hospital closures or preventing someone from accessing timely, lifesaving care.

And even through all these numbers and the partisan rhetoric, it’s important to remember that behind all of them are real people with lives and families, hopes and fears. We all benefit from taking care of our neighbors and those who need it most, and beyond that, it’s just the right thing to do.

We need leaders to step up and protect our healthcare coverage, lower our costs, and actually solve the problems that matter to us. Whether/if Republicans who represent the commonwealth in Congress can’t do that, Pennsylvanians should find people who will.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and served as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Biden administration.