Tell PA Legislators NOW: Oppose Attack on Medicaid that Limits Access

From the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (http://www.pennbpc.org):

At a time when Republicans in the United State Congress are trying frantically to repeal the ACA and roll back Medicaid, their compatriots in the Pennsylvania General Assembly are about to do the same thing. They will be bringing up legislation THIS MORNING to establish work requirements and new premiums and co-pays for Medicaid recipients. The result will be burdensome rules that are basically designed to keep people from the benefits they need.

Go to https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-the-pa-house-gop-stop-your-attacks-on-pa-medicaid-recipients to send an email, right now, to your state legislator opposing the legislation.

What’s the objection to work requirements or premiums for Medicaid?

• First, support for a work or job search requirement is based on a misconception that there are a large number of able-bodied adults who receive Medicaid, could work, and are not doing so. That’s simply not true.
• Second, creating premiums or additional co-pays for Medicaid undermines the whole point of the program, which is to help people whose incomes are so low that they cannot afford health insurance. Medicaid recipients already pay co-pays for many services. Raising them for individuals who make less than $503/month would force people who live in poverty to choose between paying the health insurance bill and paying for food or rent.

Click here to send an email to your state legislator opposing the legislation.

• Third, both work requirements and co-pays will deny people with legitimate claims benefits while wasting the money and other resources — and that, frankly, may be the point. Every time we add rules and regulations and other red tape to a human service program, we make it harder for people to secure the benefits they deserve under the law.

Just like in Washington, Republicans in Harrisburg are choosing to benefit the wealthiest Pennsylvanians rather than provide health care for working people. Republicans seek to cut Medicaid benefits in order to close the deficits that their decades of corporate tax cuts have created.

Go to our blog for more information on this terrible proposal. And be sure to click here to tell your legislator to oppose it. The vote is this morning. Please click now.