Union nurses gathered outside the Western North Carolina office of G.O.P. Senator Thom Tillis on Thursday to protest potential cuts to Medicaid, the government health program for low-income Americans.
On the steps of the historic courthouse in Hendersonville, about a dozen Mission Hospital nurses and others gathered to send a message to Tillis. “Fund care, not billionaires!"
They were carrying a large check for $19.4 billion, bearing the words “paid for by working people” to “the billionaire class.” Nurse Molly Zenker says the check symbolizes the Medicaid funding that North Carolina is at risk of losing if Congress extends President Trump’s tax cuts. The decrease in revenue could force legislators to shave funding off of social safety net programs.
She said, “This is a knife in the back for people across the country, from the biggest city to the quietest backroad. … Elderly and disabled people would be robbed of the support services they need to survive. Millions could lose their ability to get anything but emergency care. Without Medicaid, we know patients won’t get the preventative care they need.”
The group entered the historic building, but no one from Tillis’s office was there. So they gave the check to a county employee who promised to leave it at the senator’s door.
A Tillis spokesperson says the budget recently passed by the Senate did not explicitly include any cuts to Medicaid. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said it’s impossible for Republicans to reach their budget goals without making cuts to the program.
About one in five Americans is on Medicaid.