‘Morally wrong.’ WA governor slams proposed Medicaid cuts in Tri-Cities visit

Britton Winterrose is a director for Microsoft with the deluxe healthcare that job provides, but he still relies on Medicaid to keep his Richland family together.

He joined Washington Democrat Gov. Bob Ferguson in Kennewick on Thursday, along with Tri-Cities health care workers and advocates, to discuss deep concerns about proposed cuts to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act pending before Congress.

The bill, if passed in the coming days, would hit Central Washington the hardest of any region in the state, Ferguson said.

In the Washington 4th Congressional District, which includes the Tri-Cities, 70% of all children are on Medicaid, which is called Apple Health in the state.

That includes 70% of children in Franklin County, 55% of kids in Benton County, 80% of kids in Yakima County and 90% of kids in Adams County,

In the state, three in five nursing home residents and three in eight people with disabilities rely on Medicaid, and it is the largest payer for opioid use disorder treatment, Ferguson said.

Proposed cuts to Medicaid would be “cruel” and “morally wrong,” he said.

They would send shock waves through the entire health care system, affecting not just those who rely on Medicaid, he said.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who addressed proposed Medicaid cuts in a speech on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, said that hospital providers would have to shoulder an additional $36 billion in costs for people with no health care coverage, and part of those costs would be recouped by people who rely on health insurance from their job.

“As a result, people with employment-based insurance will also see an additional anywhere from ($282) to $485 in annual cost increases,” she said. Medicaid keeps child alive

Winterrose said that without Medicaid, his 5-year-old daughter Leda’s next nap could be her last.

She spent the first 45 days of her life in a neonatal intensive care unit, with doctors finally diagnosing her with a rare congenital sleep disorder.

If she falls asleep without oxygen, she will stop breathing and die.

But with the help of Medicaid the Winterrose family is able to bring her home.

“A toddler who once needed a walker now sprints across the yard because the program (Medicaid) funded the therapy and walker that strengthened her legs,” Winterrose said.

Each stage of development has required new specialists, new supplies and new equipment — feeding pumps, sensors and an electronic device to help his nonverbal daughter communicate, he said.

It’s more than even the best private insurance plans would cover, he said.

But thanks to Medicaid, he and his wife can hook up Leda to an oxygen concentrator and pulse oximeter and go to bed, confident Leda has the equipment to keep her alive through the night.

The One Big Beautiful Bill before Congress would “strike thousands of Washingtonians from the rolls of Medicaid,” Winterrose said. “And when that happens, the clinics and long-term impaired facilities that support these individuals will collapse. That blow lands on veterans, on cancer patients, on newborns in rural counties, as surely as it lands on my family.” Hospitals at risk

Republicans in Congress are proposing the largest cut to Medicaid in history, totaling $700 billion over a decade, the governor said, speaking at a news conference at Regency Canyon Lakes Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Kennewick.

Washington state spends about $21 billion a year on Medicaid, with $13 billion coming from the federal government and $8 billion from state taxpayers, he said.

Under the proposal the House already has passed, with support from Central and Eastern Washington Reps. Dan Newhouse and Michael Baumgartner, Washington would see $2 billion in cuts over four years.

The pending Senate proposal, which is opposed by Washington’s Democrat Sens. Patty Murray and Cantwell, would cut Washington state funding by $3 billion, Ferguson said.

In Washington state 31% of rural hospitals are at risk of losing services and 18 are at risk of closing, with seven of those at immediate risk of closing, Ferguson said.Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson and health care workers and advocates talked about their worries over proposed Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act at a Thursday news conference in Kennewick. Office of Gov. Bob Ferguson

Data from Democrats show which rural hospitals near the Tri-Cities face greater risk of cutting services or closing, due to being among the 10% of rural hospitals in the nation now relying the most heavily on Medicaid or already having three consecutive years in the red before losing Medicaid payments.

They include Prosser Memorial Health, Othello Community Health, Astria Sunnyside Hospital, Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake and Good Shepherd Medical Center in Hermiston, Ore., according to the list.

Cantwell estimates that 40,100 people in the 4th Congressional District would lose health coverage under provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill, including 8,400 who have coverage under the Affordable Care Act and nearly 32,000 under Medicaid.

Newhouse said in response on June 9 that the most current data then showed the nation has “4.8 million able-bodied adults choosing not to work while receiving taxpayer funded benefits, as well as over 1.4 million illegal immigrants that have been allowed benefits by states without repercussions.”

“Individuals who are eligible for Medicaid and satisfy the work requirements will receive coverage,” he said.

Ferguson called Newhouse’s statement “morally bankrupt” and a talking point from the Trump administration.

Arkansas became the first state in the nation to institute work requirements for Medicaid in 2018, and people lost health care coverage and the state lost money, Ferguson said.

“President Trump is upending critical safety net services to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Ferguson said. “It is that simple. It’s a massive wealth distribution from the folks lowest on our economic ladder to those at the very, very extreme, highest on the economic ladder.”Central and Eastern Washington are heavily dependent on Medicaid coverage, as shown in this map displayed by Gov. Bob Ferguson at a Thursday press conference in the Tri-Cities. ‘Lives are at stake’

Thelma Hedrick, who does X-rays and ultrasounds at the Kadlec Freestanding Emergency Room in Kennewick, said she’s seen many changes in her 30-year career “but there is no adapting to this one.”

Already when Medicaid patients are told they need a test, they may ask what it will cost them and then walk out without it, she said.

“For us health care workers, the action that Congress is taking is as important as any that we make for our patients,” she said. “Lives are at stake.”

Already preparations are being made in the health care industry for proposed cuts, with hiring freezes and eliminating jobs being considered, she said.

Less staff means that an ultrasound technician might not be immediately available for any parents worried about their baby, she said. Or appendicitis or gall stone surgeries might be delayed because not enough surgical nurses are available, she said.

Imelda Salinas, a Pasco home care worker, said that if Medicaid is cut, she fears for the life of her brother who is in kidney failure and what would happen to her current client, a little boy with diabetes and no feeling below his waist.

“I’m sorry if I am too emotional, but it’s affecting me to the heart,” she said. WA governor urges action

“If Congress fails to do the right thing and abandon this harmful proposal, our social safety net in Washington will be gutted,” Ferguson said. “These Medicaid cuts would be catastrophic to our state’s health care system and the (nearly) 2 million Washingtonians who depend on it.”

Ferguson has created work groups to consider the state’s options should Congress pass Medicaid cuts, but a cut of $3 billion over four years but there would be no avoiding drastic cuts to help for residents, particularly given current forecasts of budget shortfalls even without the federal overhaul to the Medicaid program, he said.

“There’d be real impacts, real harms to real Washingtonians,” he said.

If state residents are concerned, he urges them to use social media to share their own stories of how they could be impacted if Medicaid is cut.

They also can write to Newhouse or Baumgartner or ask to meet with them, he said.

He said Newhouse and Baumgartner need to meet with the people of his district like those who spoke at the Thursday press conference and “look them in the eye and promise that their lives won’t be uprooted by this.”

He’d be happy to join the conversation, he said.

“I’m confident that if every member of Congress had a child with the condition that Britton’s daughter has, they would not be taking this vote,” he said.