Depriving neediest people of health care in favor of extending tax cuts to wealthiest and corporations shows moral depravity

The more than 225,000 union registered nurses of National Nurses United denounce and vow to fight the more than $715 billion cuts and changes to Medicaid approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives today. Nurses join with the vast majority of the U.S. public in believing that health care is a human right, so for Congress to choose to deprive low-income, disabled, pregnant, senior, and child patients of health care in favor of funding tax cuts for billionaires and corporations shows the true depths of their depravity and lack of respect for humanity.

The changes as written into the budget reconciliation bill would eliminate health care for more than 8.6 million lower-income patients, impose new costs for patients who can’t afford it, establish onerous work rules, yank health care from low-income legal immigrants, cut benefits to veterans, deny patients gender-affirming care, and much more. Together, they will rob tens of millions of our patients of health and security, leading to more suffering and even death.

“All people in the United States automatically deserve health care simply because you exist, period,” said Nancy Hagans, RN and NNU president. “Everybody knows our health care system is a total failure and that what we really need is Medicare for All, which we nurses are already fighting for. Until we win guaranteed health care for everyone, we have programs like Medicaid to help those among us who are suffering the most. For Congress to take even that away shows their fundamental cruelty and how they want to ultimately destroy our public health programs and services.”

Nurses have long argued that these attacks on public programs like Medicaid are simply ideologically-based efforts to completely eliminate social support programs. Short of total eradication, right-wing, pro-corporate forces seek to defund these programs to the point of systemic dysfunction, which provides the excuse to privatize them by selling off or contracting out their functions.

“Everybody has the right to health,” said Hagans. “And as nurses, we know that health is not just individually determined, but socially determined. Nurses believe in a society where we take care of one another, not abandon people who are born or become disabled, or happen to work a job that is not financially valued. So we reject these cuts to Medicaid and other social support programs and will continue to fight for our patients and for public health.”

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.