Watch the full event here

WISCONSIN–Ahead of the one year anniversary of the Big, Ugly Bill’s passage, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin joined Protect Our Care Wisconsin, Committee to Protect Health Care and Main Street Alliance to hold Republicans like U.S. Representatives Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden accountable for creating a full-on health care crisis and putting access to health care at risk for Wisconsinites. 

Last summer, President Donald Trump and Republicans rubber-stamped over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in favor of tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. The results have already been catastrophic, and things will only get worse. Nearly 15 million people nationwide, including at least 20,000 Wisconsinites, are set to lose coverage while premiums and out-of-pocket costs have spiked for working families, forcing them to delay and forgo health care just to pay rent and put food on the table. 

These cuts put the entire state’s health care system at risk as rural health care facilities, nursing homes, and community health centers have been forced to cut services or close for good, threatening lifesaving health care access for all Wisconsinites. Emergency departments become fewer and farther between, seniors lose access to long-term care, people with disabilities face devastating disruptions to critical services, and expectant mothers must travel farther for maternity care. Speakers shared how Republican cuts have wreaked havoc on Wisconsin’s health care system and called on their elected leaders to reverse course. 

“When I talk to Wisconsinites, they are desperate for health care they can afford,” said U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin. “They want to know that their medication or care for their disabled child is going to be there when they need it. They don’t want deep and reckless cuts to their healthcare. Instead of listening to the people of Wisconsin, Republicans turned their backs and slashed Medicaid to the tune of $1 trillion.”

“Our rates for employees, for insurance coverage have gone up over 40%,” said small business owner and Main Street Alliance Member Ashley Prange. “And while no one directly on my team is, impacted with Medicaid cuts, family members are, and so the conversations have been really a struggle to listen to. The suffering that this has caused is almost impossible to attach words to.”

“I’m deeply concerned about the Medicaid cuts included in H.R. 1 passed nearly a year ago, when they occurred within a system that was already incredibly vulnerable and nearing the brink,” said Dr. Kristen Dall-Winther, M.D., Committee to Protect Healthcare. “I’m even more concerned that some of Wisconsin’s leaders, like Representative Tom Tiffany and Derek Van Orden, voted for this legislation that would further strip health coverage from hundreds of thousands of people across Wisconsin, putting patients, families, and communities at risk.”

You can watch the full event here, and learn more about the Trump-GOP health crisis here.