FASCIST fotze Sen joni ernst r-IA is a nasty, psychotic, sociopathic, narcissistic, self-righteous BITCH. She is a magat cultist, a "religious" right wing extremist liar, deceiver and manipulator. NOT MY pres drumpf / trump grabbed her right by her pu$$y and she is his. Think not? Check this out from Mother Jones, the PBS News Hour and Politico, and be sure to read the piece from FactCheck about illegal immigration and Medicaid at the end of this post. And check out Sen Bernie Sanders' campaign to provide healthcare for all here.
“Well, We’re All Going to Die,” Says GOP Senator in Defense of Medicaid Cuts
The largest Medicaid cuts in US history, which, if signed into law, would sever healthcare for the poorest Americans in order to offset massive tax cuts for the wealthy, have a curious new defense: “Well, we all are going to die.”
WATCH: ‘We are all going to die’ Sen. Ernst says in combative Iowa town hall
The line emerged on Friday as Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) attempted to defend the cuts before angry constituents during a contentious town hall. It was delivered with a smirk, and then, apparent impatience. “For heaven’s sakes, folks,” she said as the audience gasped.
It is true: Every one of us will indeed perish. But implicit in Ernst’s cavalier response on Friday is that the inevitability of death neutralizes how death comes for us. Jeopardizing health care for the most vulnerable? Why the hell not. Speeding up death for the oldest Americans by making them sicker? Well, we all are going to die.
Of course, the reality is that so much of the death that American society tolerates—our gun epidemic, a lack of universal health care, etc.—is a choice enshrined in our shitty politics. Just take a look at the staggering rise in babies born HIV positive right now, thanks to a similar casual cruelty of Elon Musk.
Ernst’s point is an accidental bedrock of GOP politics. Death does not matter, for certain people, if it means a supposed economic boost to the few.
‘Well, we all are going to die': Joni Ernst spars with town hall crowd over Medicaid
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst is the latest Republican to face an angry crowd of constituents, sparring with town hall attendees over President Donald Trump’s signature piece of legislation.
Constituents on Friday gathered in Butler County, Iowa, to hear Ernst defend the Trump administration’s work, including efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency and Republicans’ congressional priorities.
But when a constituent questioned Ernst about the reconciliation bill, things became heated. The woman, who said she had previously emailed Ernst’s office with her concerns, argued the bill’s proposed cuts seemed neither “compassionate” nor “fiscally responsible.” She accused Ernst of supporting a “tax shelter” for the wealthy.
As the audience applauded the woman, she continued, expressing concerns about the bill’s proposed cuts to SNAP benefits and Medicaid spending. Ernst said those who would lose Medicaid were not currently eligible for Medicaid.
“You are arguing — when you’re arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid benefits, 1.4 million, 1.4 million they’re not — they are not eligible so they will be coming off,” Ernst said. One audience member could then be heard shouting, “People are going to die.”
“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded.
Audience members gasped and booed the senator, but Ernst seemed unbothered.
“Listen to me when I say that we are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable,” Ernst said as constituents continued to shout at her.
House Republicans passed the reconciliation bill — which Trump dubbed the “big beautiful bill” — after weeks of internal debate. Only two Republicans sided with Democrats in voting against the bill. But the bill faces another battle in the Senate, where Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) previously compared it to the Titanic and said he’s going to make sure it sinks in the upper chamber.
Initial estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that the bill could lead to 7.6 million people going uninsured.
“If you don’t want to listen, that’s fine but what I’m doing is going through and telling you that those that are not eligible, those that are working and have benefits elsewhere, then they should receive those benefits elsewhere. Leave those dollars for those that are eligible for Medicaid,” Ernst continued.
Republicans from around the nation have faced hostile crowds of constituents in the months following Trump’s election.
Some GOP leaders — including Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson — have offered unsubstantiated claims that people at the town halls are paid protesters. “The videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places,” Johnson told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins earlier this year. “This is an old playbook that they pulled out and ran, and it made it look like that what is happening in Washington is unpopular.”
House Republicans’ campaign arm also advised members in March to not hold in-person town halls.
A False Claim About Illegal Immigration and Medicaid
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Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.
A House-passed reconciliation bill would reduce federal funding to states that provide state-funded health insurance to people in the U.S. illegally, resulting in 1.4 million people losing coverage, according to a preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis. But President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have wrongly cast the bill as removing these immigrants from Medicaid.
Medicaid is a joint federal-state government program that provides health coverage for low-income individuals and families. People living in the U.S. illegally are not eligible to receive Medicaid benefits other than for emergency medical services.
“A state funded program is by definition not Medicaid,” Leonardo Cuello, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families, told us in an email.
But in a May 16 Truth Social post encouraging Republican lawmakers to support the wide-ranging House budget bill, which makes changes to Medicaid and extends expiring income tax cuts, among other things, Trump said the legislation would remove from Medicaid “millions” of people illegally residing in the country.
“Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!,'” Trump’s post reads. “Not only does it cut Taxes for ALL Americans, but it will kick millions of Illegal Aliens off of Medicaid to PROTECT it for those who are the ones in real need.”
As for the tax cuts, about 80% of U.S. households – not 100% – would receive them under the bill, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
To support his Medicaid claim, the White House sent us a May 13 social media post from the Republican-led House Committee on Energy and Commerce. That post on X about “strengthening Medicaid” by “eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse” suggested that “1.4 million illegal immigrants” would lose Medicaid coverage as a result of the bill, according to a “preliminary CBO estimate on coverage changes.”
The CBO estimated that overall, the Medicaid provisions in the Republican bill would reduce the number of people with Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage by 10.3 million by 2034, though some would retain or acquire other insurance. A net 7.6 million people would become uninsured, CBO said.
But the agency did not say that 1.4 million people in the U.S. illegally would lose Medicaid benefits.
The Senate Republicans account on X wrongly claimed in a May 20 post that the bill “protects Medicaid for eligible Americans by removing 1.4 million illegals.” That was a day after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also inaccurately claimed that, under the bill, “the 1.4 million illegal aliens who are currently improperly receiving Medicaid benefits will be kicked off the program to preserve it for hardworking American citizens who need it.”
And after the House narrowly passed the bill early on May 22 with only Republican votes, House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed that Democrats voting against the bill showed they wanted “Medicaid for illegal immigrants.”
CBO, which analyzed provisions in an early draft of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s portion of the House budget bill, said that, in 2034, 1.4 million people would lose “other coverage” — specifically health insurance through “state-only funded programs” under current law.
The 1.4 million “includes people without verified citizenship, nationality, or satisfactory immigration status,” the CBO said.
Those individuals are presumed to lose their state-provided health benefits because the House bill includes language penalizing states that provide “any form of financial assistance” for health coverage or “any form of comprehensive health benefits” to immigrants living in the country illegally “regardless of the source of funding.”
For those states, the bill proposes reducing from 90% to 80% the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage rate that the federal government is required to pay to states that expanded Medicaid for eligible individuals under the Affordable Care Act.
The CBO analysis assumes that at least some states, deterred by reduced federal payments for their Medicaid programs, would stop offering their state-funded health programs to immigrants without lawful immigration status, leaving more than 1 million of them uninsured.
But those individuals would not come from the Medicaid program.
“Medicaid is when a state is accepting federal Medicaid dollars in compliance with federal Medicaid coverage rules,” Cuello, the Georgetown University professor, told us. So the bill’s provisions aren’t about Medicaid, he said. “And of course, undocumented immigrants are also not eligible for comprehensive coverage in Medicaid.”
The health policy research group KFF said that, as of April, there were 14 states, plus the District of Columbia, that use state taxpayer money, not federal funds, to cover children regardless of immigration status, including seven states and D.C. that also cover some adults regardless of immigration status.
“So there are not millions of undocumented people losing [Medicaid] coverage because of this bill, since they don’t have comprehensive coverage under Medicaid to begin with, and the very limited emergency Medicaid coverage provided to immigrants is not changed under the bill,” Cuello said.
Cuello told us that hospitals can request reimbursement for providing emergency medical assistance, such as emergency labor and delivery, to people in the country illegally who would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. Those reimbursements are paid using state and federal money known as Emergency Medicaid funding.
KFF has said that less than 1% of all Medicaid spending is used for covering emergency care for immigrants who are not U.S. citizens. That information comes from a CBO report on fiscal years 2017 to 2023.
Since House Republicans have passed their bill, it now goes to the Senate for consideration.
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