During a town hall on Tuesday, Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) spoke about looming Medicaid cuts.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's rare. Generally, you recover a bit and then the rest is the rest of your life.
00:09But I only survived that because my sister was at my mom's house the morning that it hit me.
00:15She was able to get me, not to the hospital, but to us.
00:19Those of you that you're not in the area, once you leave not in bed, you're into Milwaukee, it's like three or four miles away.
00:26An EMT, a paramedic, happened to be cleaning vehicles at 6 in the morning.
00:31My sister pulled in and they didn't even wait for her to explain what was going on.
00:35I mean, they grabbed me and they put me in an ambulance and they started to treat me.
00:38That split decision, it gave me that ambulance, it started treating me, contributed to saving my life.
00:43And then when I.
01:13We had some symptoms for a stroke instead of getting to a fire department or to a facility within minutes.
01:23Now it's out. Time is not on your side.
01:28The devastation to New Mexicans with Medicaid being eliminated. I can't even think what that would become.
01:35And then to boot right Melanie.
01:39The resolution that house Republicans just passed.
01:42If it wasn't enough to go after $700 billion in Medicaid.
01:46They said, well, let's go after Medicare.
01:50To the tune of over $500 billion over 10 years.
01:54And then my colleagues have the audacity to say that they're not cutting Medicaid or Medicare.
01:59They're just leading it up to the states.
02:02So take that out.
02:04Leave it up to the states.
02:05The states have to now come up budgetarily at the local level.
02:08Ignoring the states and have triggers to see if they don't get the money.
02:11Then they go after Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
02:17Meals on wheels.
02:18Think about folks that are homebound.
02:22Seniors.
02:23That the only conversation that they have is to deliver that mail.
02:26That goes away.
02:28All the school free lunch programs for kids go away.
02:33Those food banks.
02:36What happens to them?
02:38Church pantries.
02:39What happens to them?
02:40And by the way, you know who came to senior reselling grocery stores?
02:45So why are they here?
02:47Grocery stores are concerned across America because of the selling of food.
02:54Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
02:56Think about rural grocery stores now closing.
02:59More food deserts across the country.
03:00So states are going to have to come up with nutrition dollars.
03:03They're going to come up with Medicaid dollars.
03:05And they're cutting everything else.
03:06And you all know why.
03:08To bring back that failed tax policy from 2017.
03:13When I was doing town halls during that moment.
03:17My constituents are the ones that told me that sure feels like a scam.
03:20Because I'm not making 2 million bucks a year.
03:22I'm not going to get the benefit of that.
03:24Why do they keep saying that working families are going to get the brunt of this tax cut when it's going to the most wealthy in the country?
03:31Great.
03:36If you were on the top 3 million bucks a week or only.
03:39Fine.