Brown in Plain Dealer: Trump Budget Bill Imperils Health Care for Ohioans, Serves the Powerful by Punishing the Poor

Cleveland, OH – Congresswoman Shontel Brown (OH-11) strongly criticized the Republican Reconciliation Bill in an op-ed published today in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, writing, “this is One Big Ugly Bill. And it’s not just ugly, it’s devastating. It’s a gut punch to working families and a golden parachute for the wealthy. It writes a check to the rich and sticks the rest of us with the bill.” 

The full text of the op-ed is at Cleveland.com. 

Key Points from Brown’s Op-Ed: 

“For all that talk about "fiscal responsibility," this bill explodes the deficit. In fact, it is expected to add nearly $3 trillion dollars to our national debt. And in a few short years, Republicans will use the debt they created to justify deeper cuts. That’s not budgeting. That’s a heist—stealing from the future to pay the wealthiest today.”

[…]

“Here’s what’s at stake. Last month, House Republicans voted to kick 16 million people off their health insurance by 2034. If you rely on Medicaid and or Affordable Care Act premium assistance, you could lose it. And those aren’t my numbers, they’re from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. 

“Here in Ohio’s 11th District, over 43,000 people are at risk of losing their health care coverage. What happens when people lose insurance? They stop seeing the doctor. They leave prescriptions unfilled. And, yes, they die preventable deaths.”

[…]

“As if gutting health care wasn’t enough, this bill slashes food assistance too. Over 35,000 people in our district could lose some or all of their SNAP benefits. That’s thousands of moms and dads in Cleveland worried about putting food on the table. I know that struggle. I lived it. That was my family growing up.” 

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