Tina Ewing-Wilson remembers the last time major Medicaid cuts slashed her budget.
In the late 2000s, during the Great Recession, the pot of money she and other Medi-Cal recipients depend on to keep them out of costly residential care homes shrank.
The only way she could afford help was to offer room and board to a series of live-in caregivers who she said abused alcohol and drugs and eventually subjected her to financial abuse. She vowed to never rely on live-in care again.
Now the 58-year-old Republican from the Inland Empire is worried Medicaid cuts being mulled by her party in Washington could force her into another vulnerable spot.
“If they reduce my budget, that doesn’t change the fact that I need 24-hour care,” said Ewing-Wilson, who has struggled with seizures and developmental disabilities her entire life. “If they cut it too much, people will die or they’ll lose their freedoms.”
Similar stories have already surfaced in GOP-held swing districts nationwide where activists have been applying political pressure to sway vulnerable House members from supporting $880 billion in cuts that health experts say would almost certainly hit safety net programs. But in California, which sends more Republicans to Congress than any state west of Texas, consumer groups and health industry giants are joining forces in a quieter campaign to lobby lawmakers in solidly red districts, some of which they say would be disproportionately affected if those cuts materialize.
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