President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" on tax cuts, with its $1 trillion cut to Medicaid funding, will be a catastrophe for caregivers to disabled family members, Danilyn Rutherford wrote for Salon in a dire warning published on Tuesday.
Rutherford wrote tenderly about her daughter Millie, who needs constant care.
"She doesn’t walk independently, she can’t feed herself, she’s legally blind, and she doesn’t speak, sign or communicate with symbols. She has qualified for government services provided for disabled Americans since she was less than a year old. She is now 24. As a widow with a full-time job, I understand the value of paid care; my daughter and I can’t live without it," she wrote. "My daughter is the definition of vulnerable. Left to her own devices, she’d die of thirst and hunger. If a fire broke out in our house, she would burn. Her caregivers feed her, toilet her, bathe her, strap her into her wheelchair, take her for walks and take her swimming."
It's precisely people like Millie who are in danger from the GOP's draconian Medicaid cuts, Rutherford wrote — and "they will suffer" as this funding dries up for state public health programs.
"The moral weight of care work falls mostly on women, many of them immigrants from the Global South, who do the work that allows women like me to have a career, freedom, hobbies, enough rest," wrote Rutherford. "Some of the women who care for Millie are from middle-class backgrounds. Some are white, like my daughter and me. Many are from working-class and immigrant communities who have to commute at least a half-hour to reach my house."
Given falling birth rates in the United States and the high cost of medical care, politicians need to take this crisis seriously, Rutherford concluded.
"Trump, and so many other politicians, have turned their backs on the millions of recipients and workers who depend on Medicaid. The rest of us should not. We need to fight back. Empathy is a virtue; it should not be a trap. It’s time to give caregivers their due."
All of this comes as the GOP tries to grapple with the unintended consequences of what they just passed. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced legislation to repeal some of the Medicaid cuts, and other lawmakers are fretting over controversial provisions they didn't even know were in the bill, like a new tax on gambling.