Schumer Visits Rockland to Decry Proposed Federal Cutbacks

In response to the Trump administration’s attempt to reign in Medicaid expenditures, longtime NYS Senator Charles Schumer (D) visited Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw on Thursday, April 17, urging his constituents to fight proposed cuts to Medicaid. 

Of the $880 billion national reduction being proposed, approximately $3.4 billion will affect the 17th Congressional District, which includes all of Rockland and Putnam, as well as parts of Ulster, Westchester and Bronx counties. According to Schumer, the reduction may force healthcare facilities in the county to cut $742 million received by 156,000 children, as well as cutting an additional 60,000 seniors and disabled persons currently receiving $2.7 billion a year. 

“New York Republicans are tying themselves in knots to justify these cuts, but the math shows you cannot move forward with this plan without hurting our seniors, families and healthcare providers who rely on Medicaid,” said Schumer, who chose Helen Hayes as the backdrop for his press conference.  Schumer said Helen Hayes receives approximately 36 percent of its funds from that federal program and that nearly seven million New Yorkers rely on Medicaid as a lifeline.

U.S. Congressman Michael Lawler (R/C-NY17), who has been harassed and heckled at private and public events since Donald Trump took office, wrote an opinion piece for USA Today, decrying what he described as a “dishonest op-ed they ran.”  Saying his own father battled cancer and had depended on Social Security Disability to make ends meet, Lawler told USA Today he knows firsthand how such programs are lifelines for families in need. “If you work hard and play by the rules, you’re the bad guy—and your punishment is to sit down, shut up and pay more taxes to fund a bloated, corrupt government that creates dependence instead of opportunity and favors endless government handouts to lawbreakers instead of a compassionate hand up to good people in need.”  

The late President John F. Kennedy, as well as his Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barak Obama and Republican Ronald Reagan, all called for a sweeping reduction to federal spending to no avail.