Wisconsin Republicans insist that President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill won’t cut the Medicaid benefits of deserving recipients, and it will somehow save something like $700 billion by ending waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program. But they’ve provided no evidence to back up that claim and Medicaid recipients are on high alert for life-altering disruptions.
On Thursday’s radio show, we talked to Sara Ring of Eau Claire. Her sister Carrie has been developmentally disabled since birth.
“My father is a disabled Vietnam veteran,” Ring said. “And our mother has been a caregiver for my sister for the last 44 years of her life.”
“Medicaid is a lifesaver for my sister and our family because we can keep her in her home and in her community. IRIS is a Medicaid funded program [for the elderly and disabled] that allows us to care and pay care workers we trust to come into my parents’ home and give my sister the personal care that she needs.”
As a result of the already-serious shortage of home caregivers, Ring and her siblings have taken on more of the load. But with aging parents and a need to support their own families, it’s Medicaid that allows Carrie to get the support she needs.
“She would go to an institution, like a nursing home, where we know her care would degrade. Her well-being would degrade,” Ring said. “We know because we have tried it over the years. We’ve tried many different situations, and that’s what happens. She doesn’t get that one-on-one care that she needs.”
Republicans insist there aren’t “cuts” so much as there are going to be new work requirements and other ways to require proof of eligibility. But it’s not as if Carrie is going to suddenly be not developmentally disabled.
“We have to prove over and over again — monthly, quarterly, yearly — that my sister is indeed disabled and is eligible to participate in the IRIS program. And she has family that does that [paperwork] for her. But many other people do not have family that can jump through all these additional hoops that are going to be required.”
So if Carrie’s family slips up and doesn’t get all of the paperwork just right one time, her benefits could be taken away—something that happens frequently in other states. It enables politicians to cut a program without having to acknowledge they are, indeed, cuts.
