CAMPAIGN UPDATE: The Voices Behind Medicaid – And The Fight to Protect It
RuralOrganizing launched an ambitious campaign to defend rural services in election battleground towns from congressional budget cuts. Read below for a campaign update and stories from the field.
The debate over Medicaid cuts isn’t just about numbers on a budget line. It’s about our neighbors — seniors, veterans, families with kids with disabilities. It’s about the retiree in Iowa trying to keep his community hospital open, the mother in Pennsylvania struggling to keep her promise to her dying parent, and the caregiver in Montana witnessing firsthand the devastating impact of losing healthcare coverage.
Across five states in key battleground towns– California, Washington, Iowa, Montana, and Pennsylvania – RuralOrganizing.org is amplifying the voices of people who would bear the brunt of these cuts. Our organizers are knocking doors, hosting town halls, and gathering stories to make sure every lawmaker hears the human cost of slashing Medicaid.
In Iowa, State Representative Adam Zabner collected dozens of stories from people like Tom O’Donnell, a retiree in Miller-Meeks’ most rural county, who fears the hospital that serves his community won’t survive more budget cuts. “There aren’t enough fish fries and bake sales to cover what we’ll lose,” he says. For Eric Kusiak, a nurse in Iowa City, cuts to Medicaid could turn emergency room visits into life-or-death gambles: “Imagine your father has chest pain, but the ER wait time is 16 hours.”
In Pennsylvania, our organizer Megan met Bernadette Bowman, a woman who was saddled with $400,000 in medical debt before Medicaid stepped in. “Anyone can get sick,” she says. “No one should be ruined just because they did.” Mari Day, a mother of two children with speech delays, wonders what will happen if Medicaid is gutted. “Every child deserves the chance to be heard,” she writes. “These services aren’t optional; they’re essential to their future.”
California organizer Evin listened as Dawna Sodders-Simpson (pictured below), who uses a walker, described how she might lose her home without Medicaid coverage. “If [Rep. David Valadao] doesn’t vote to protect Medicaid, we will vote him out,” she says. Diane Holcombe echoed her sentiment, warning that 90% of nursing home residents in her rural community rely on Medicaid – and that a single closure could eliminate 1,000 jobs.
In Montana, our organizer, Ella, has been traveling the backroads of MT-01, gathering testimonies from people like Steven Sweeney, who calls out his representative for turning his back on veterans and seniors: “Fellow Montanans, when you voted last November, were you intent on getting rid of your Social Security or Medicaid benefits? Did you vote to cut veterans’ services or eliminate surveillance of our foreign adversaries?” Jason Cronk, the CEO of Immanuel Living, puts it bluntly: “Even if federal funding remains intact, Montana is already failing its seniors by underfunding Medicaid at the state level.”
RuralOrganizing is on the ground, elevating these voices and reminding lawmakers that tax breaks for billionaires come at the cost of closed hospitals, underfunded schools, and lost benefits, such as Social Security and Medicaid. Cuts to these rural services don’t just threaten these families; they endanger entire towns.
Subscribe to our Substack to follow our #DefendRuralServices campaign as we continue to talk to the communities impacted the most.