Extremist politicians want to make devastating cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. Tens of millions of Americans rely on these programs for their health care. And thousands of AFSCME members work with these programs, delivering life-saving services to American families.
The new administration has already shown that it wants to hand over the fate of public service workers to billionaires and anti-union politicians.
Now, working families’ health care is in jeopardy. That’s why we need to get organized.
Raising prices of prescriptions drugs
In 2022, we won a historic victory that allowed Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. That saved senior citizens $1.5 billion on copays and deductibles.
And this year, people with Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage expected to see a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on their Medicare Part D costs. The cost of insulin was capped at $35 a month. Those provisions may soon be on the chopping block.
The Biden administration had also announced the second round of 15 drugs eligible for negotiation, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act's effort to lower prescription drug costs for seniors. Savings on even more lifesaving drugs were expected, though Project 2025 sought to undo many of that law’s benefits.
But this progress will be wiped away if these extremist politicians and billionaire pharma executives get their way.
Ending Medicaid as we know it
Nearly 72 million people depend on Medicaid. But these politicians want to change Medicaid as we know it.
Some want to slash the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansion, which expanded health care for low-income individuals. Another possibility involves changing how Medicaid gets funded.
Either way, states would have to pay more to keep these services running, which would mean fewer people would have health care, fewer services would be provided, and providers would earn less.
That would also mean that states would be forced to cut other public services, like education, transportation and law enforcement.
What can we do?
It’s simple: the bigger we are, the more power we have to fight back against these attacks. By going to a union meeting, signing up for text alerts about your union, participating in a town hall, or even getting a co-worker to sign a union card, we’ll be in the best position to tell extremist politicians and billionaires that we don’t want to just get by; we deserve to thrive.