*The original Headline on this was INCORRECT…
I HAVE changed the Blue to Red States……
My Mistake…..
It is Unknown WTF GOP US lawmakers are all excited and fighting to CUT Medicaid and Food benefits to their States And Voters…..
‘It’s going to close rural hospitals’
The Senate version of the bill had been poised to make even deeper cuts to Medicaid than the measure the House narrowly passed last month. Hawley and other senators have threatened to withhold support for the legislation unless Republican leaders make significant changes, particularly to funding rural hospitals, which has complicated Trump’s plea to sign the bill into law before July 4.
Republicans were dealt a major setback on Thursday when a key Medicaid change they were counting on to pay for the legislation was ruled in violation of Senate rules. But party leaders have vowed to push forward with new workarounds, with Trump rallying support for the megabill during an afternoon White House event.
“Senate leadership needs to fix this,” Hawley told reporters this week. “It’s going to close rural hospitals.”
More than 1,000 miles away from Washington, inside the bright hallways of Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare in Clinton, Missouri, a sense of anxiety over the Medicaid debate was evident on a recent afternoon.
The 50-bed hospital is not only a critical piece of the economy as the largest employer in Henry County, but also the only maternity ward and emergency room for about an hour’s drive in each direction across this stretch of western Missouri.
“We are paying very close attention because we want to make sure that those Medicaid benefits are preserved so our patients can continue to access care that they need,” said Craig Thompson, CEO of Golden Valley Memorial. “For rural hospitals like ours, it’s ranchers, it’s farmers, it’s small business owners and it’s a whole lot of kids.”….
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‘Food pantries have helped us through’
Long before the House passed nearly $300 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once known as food stamps, signs of increasing need have been clear at Ozarks Food Harvest, a 100,000-square-foot warehouse on the edge of Springfield. It serves about 30 million meals every year across one-third of Missouri.
“The demand for food is quite a bit higher than it was even at the height of the Covid crisis,” said Bart Brown, president and CEO of the non-profit food program. “We are seeing lots of new families that we’ve never seen before.”
The SNAP program has always been solely funded by the federal government. The House measure called for passing along considerable costs to state governments, which are already facing difficult choices and balanced-budget requirements….
UPDATE….
“Jim McLaughlin, one of President Donald Trump’s top pollsters, said Hill Republicans should nix Senate Republicans’ deeper Medicaid cuts in the megabill or risk deep backlash from voters,” Politico reports.
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