"Medicaid has saved my life multiple times": Patients explain how GOP cuts could impact their health

With congressional Republicans scheming up ways to slash hundreds of billions of dollars n in federal funding for Medicaid, those who have relied on the program are now sharing their stories, highlighting how the program fills critical gaps in the United States’ social safety net and saves lives.

Earlier this year, House Republicans committed to cutting $880 billion from programs managed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Even if Republicans eliminated all non-mandatory spending from programs managed by the committee, they would still need to cut some $700 billion from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to one KFF analysis. 

Republicans have played coy with their plans to gut the program, with many telling constituents that they don’t plan to cut benefits for anyone who legitimately qualifies. As it stands, Republicans are debating ways to adjust how federal funding for the program is allocated. This would, in turn, push the decision of whether or not to cut benefits to state lawmakers, who don’t have access to anywhere near the same resources as the federal government. Many states already have trigger laws in place that will automatically cut the program if there is any reduction in federal funding.

As Republicans hold town halls to convince their constituents they’re not going to cut Medicaid, despite their previous votes, activists like Tim Faust and his organization, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, have been holding their own competing public events, rallying people behind support for the program and sharing stories about how  Medicaid has impacted their lives. Three of those town hall attendees have agreed to share their stories with Salon.

Dana Horstman’s Medicaid story starts around 12 years ago, when she suffered a major spinal cord injury. She told Salon that, after her injury, “I was in the hospital for about five weeks, and then I had outpatient rehab for eight months. Without Medicaid, I wouldn't be where I am today.”

Prior to her injury, Horstman said that she was her household’s breadwinner. During a training at her job in event photography, a supervisor noticed something was wrong and asked her to get cleared by a doctor before returning to work. After about two weeks, Horstman was able to get an MRI and doctors found a bone spur.

“I lost my job, my partner actually stayed home with our children, and so now she's taking care of me. We have no income. We have no Medicaid or Social Security yet, you know, because I'm newly injured, and she couldn't go get a job because she had to take care of me. It was terrible. It was scary. And we lived on my kids' part-time job paychecks, yeah, so that's what we lived on for many months, until I finally got disability coming in,” Horstman explained. “It was about nine months after my injury and surgery and everything that I got into Long Term Care through Medicaid in the state of Wisconsin... Then she, my partner, became my caregiver, my paid caregiver through Medicaid dollars, through the Long Term Care program.”

Given that she lives in one of the few states that hasn’t expanded Medicaid under the ACA, Horstman said that she doesn’t trust the state legislature to fund the program if congressional Republicans pull back federal dollars. She said that she didn’t believe her congressman, Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., when he told his constituents that “No American citizen who is legally receiving benefits from the Federal Government will see their support cut..” 

“Well, I just, I don't believe them. I mean, there's just no way that they cannot cut people who still legally deserve it if they have to cut it by the $880 billion,” Horston said. “It’s not easy being on Medicaid. You have to reapply every year. You give up your autonomy. It’s like ‘Here’s all my medical records, ’ and you have to jump through all the red tape and the hoops.”

Max, who declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation, told Salon that he lost his job as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin during the pandemic. In 2022, he decided to start his own business renovating the exterior of buildings.

"At some point, I had noticed, you know, in the shower that there was an odd lump on my lower abdomen. I thought, you know, 'Huh, that's weird. I didn't see that before.'”

He said he applied for Medicaid and went in to see a doctor, who diagnosed the condition as a hernia, likely related to the heavy lifting he does at work. Because of Medicaid, he was able to get the surgery he needed as treatment.

“Flash forward to now, I've had, you know, a variety of other issues, including recently, just the other day — I just turned 50 in February, and so my bones are getting a bit creaky and I have, apparently, some arthritis in my right hip, and I guess... they called it a bursitis,” Max said. “It's causing issues, most likely as a result of, you know, continued use. I'm a painter, and I'm currently working as a painter and handyman.”

Max said that if he had not been able to get a cortisone shot, which was covered by Medicaid, he wouldn’t be able to work with his right arm.

“I think at this point that the doctor bill would probably consume all of my income, if not more than that,” Max said. “So I could be working just to simply pay a doctor bill and not rent, food, you know, child support, etc, etc. So it wouldn’t make sense to be doing what I’m doing.”

Max said that, despite their insistence that they won't technically cut Medicaid benefits, he doesn’t trust congressional Republicans. He also said that he would expect state Republicans in Wisconsin to cut the program if the decision is pushed from the federal level to the states.

Oliver Winn told Salon that he’s been on and off Medicaid throughout his entire life as a “chronically ill individual and the child of two disabled parents.” Winn’s mother lost an eye in an accident and Winn’s father was exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. 

Winn said that towards the end of his father’s life “he had both Medicaid and VA insurance, and towards the end of his life, he started having heart issues, and we found hospitals, they wouldn't take his VA insurance, but they would take Medicaid, and they were able to prolong his life a little bit longer.”

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

“My mother's disability through Medicaid and stuff is what made sure that we could eat at all and pay bills, and Medicaid has saved my life multiple times. At one point, I had pneumonia for six months because I didn't have Medicaid. At the time, I was waiting for the application time, and unfortunately, I was sent by my work to the hospital because I got too sick waiting too long, and they told me that if I would have waited much longer, I would’ve died,” Winn said. “The visit cost me $4,500 and change. The next time I got pneumonia I was able to go to the hospital right away and my medication was free. The first time I wasn't able to pay rent and I cried in the checkout lane, and the next time I didn't have I didn't have to worry about that.”

Winn said that, in his own life, he suffers from chronic pain and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which made it difficult to hold down a job and, on some days, even get out of bed. However, Winn said, he’s not legally considered disabled and Medicaid has been the only reason he’s been able to access the treatment needed to retain some “semblance of quality of life.” Social Security Disability Insurance denies the majority of applications: in 2024, only around 38% of initial applications were approved. Even when applicants decide to appeal their initial rejection, just 16% are accepted..

“Because the application process has been too arduous, and because I've managed to hold down a job a couple of times for a few months, you don't consider me disabled enough to qualify for disability despite the fact that I have almost no quality of life,” Winn said. “You have to get testimonies from physicians. You have to get testimonies from family and friends, and collect all this data to prove that you can't do stuff, which is really hard when you can't do stuff.”

Winn said that Medicaid fills in a gap for people who don’t qualify for disability insurance but also can’t work. Current policy dictates that Americans who are able to do substantial work, defined as earning more than $1,550 in a month, are ineligible for disability benefits. The application process itself is long and arduous, and often results in rejection. 

“I became homeless for a time when I was trying to pay off the medical debt that I accrued when I didn't have Medicaid. I was homeless for six months while working full time to try and pay off those bills,” Winn said. “I got sick while I was homeless, but thankfully, I had Medicaid at that point. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone to the hospital. I would have just died to be honest.”