GOP Medicaid cuts will cause ‘humanitarian crisis’ in the U.S., speakers say

Abby Gabriel, 15, kicked off her pink shoes shortly before 11 a.m. Friday. It had been a busy morning. Now Abby’s sock-covered feet could finally breathe.

Several minutes before, Abby was the center of attention. Her mother, Erin, had stood at a podium and introduced Abby to a crowd of about 100 people gathered in the portico of the City-County Building in Downtown Pittsburgh. TV crews and reporters clustered together in the front row, facing Abby. Behind the cameras and reporters stood everyday people concerned that Republicans were putting people such as Abby at risk.

“As you can see, she is an amazing, loving, funny, curious and stubborn teenager,” Erin had said of her daughter, who sat in her wheelchair beside her mother. “She loves dancing to Taylor Swift, being outside, everything Disney, even going to the symphony. She’s really a fun kid. Abby is also autistic. She’s deaf, blind, nonspeaking, she uses a wheelchair to get around, and she has a long list of medical symptoms that go along with her genetic diagnosis.”

Holding a bag of Goldfish crackers in one hand, Abby had waved to the crowd with the other.

Like the other speakers, Erin then went on to discuss the importance of Medicaid in the care of people such as her daughter.

But that speech had ended a while ago. Now, the crowd was thinning out. After ditching her shoes, Abby looked up. Before her stood Toni Danchik, with her purple hair and sunglasses.

Danchik carried a large homemade sign that read, “My beautiful daughter is NOT a parasite! She needs Medicaid.” The sign included two pictures of a young woman with a wide smile and sunglasses.

Danchik, who lives in Bethel Park, smiled at Abby and then said to Erin, who stood nearby, “I swear, your story is like my story, almost to a T. My daughter is 16. She’s a spitfire, a Goldfish eater, a Taylor Swift dancer. Her name is Christine. And she takes her shoes off everywhere she goes. People would come up to me at the store when she was little and say, ‘Oh, aren’t her feet cold?’ I’m like, ‘If you want to get her shoes to stay on, have at it while I go shopping.’ You know, we pick and choose our battles.”

Both mothers laughed.

It was a delightful moment in an era of anxiety and worry for Erin Gabriel and Toni Danchik and millions of others angry at congressional Republicans for passing a budget resolution that threatens Medicaid with up to $880 billion in cuts.

People in the disability community use words such as “terrifying” and “devastating” when they talk about the GOP’s scheme. Medicaid is a big program, and it’s a tempting target for Republicans, since gutting it could go a long way toward mitigating the fiscal damage that’ll be caused by the Trump administration’s proposed tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest people.

But Republicans have a problem: people whose lives would be turned upside down by Medicaid cuts are getting noisy. Those gathered Downtown were vocal and carried homemade signs. “Stop Welfare for the Wealthy, Save Medicaid,” read one. Another: “Save Medicaid, Save My Life.”

They heard from several elected leaders – state Reps. Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon, and Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill; U.S. Reps. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, and Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel; Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey. Each noted what they called the life-and-death consequences of the GOP’s rush to dismantle the federal government’s commitment to adults and children who need health care but struggle with limited resources. These are folks trying to keep their cars running, pay the rent, buy groceries, work at jobs that pay too little, in addition to wrestling with health care.

“Cuts to Medicaid will cause a humanitarian crisis in Pennsylvania,” Miller stated in his opening remarks. Here are the numbers: Three million people in the state depend on Medicaid for health care – that’s 35% of the population. The program covers nearly 40% of the state’s children, 47% of working-age adults with disabilities and 64% of people in nursing homes.

That’s a lot of people of all political stripes – liberal, conservative, even those who tune out of politics. They’ll be feeling the pain of any cuts to Medicaid, and they’re becoming alarmed. GOP representatives who held town halls got an earful. The videos flew across social media platforms. All that shouting caught the Republicans by surprise. Their solution: stop holding town halls.

So they’re shutting their ears from the voices of people such as Alisa Grishman, who sat in her wheelchair Friday while holding a sign reading, “Here lies Alisa, 1981-2025. She couldn’t afford her insulin.”

“I’ve lost sleep. I’ve cried,” she said. “I’m scared. I have so many loved ones who rely on Medicaid. It’s terrifying.”

Grishman, 43, an Uptown resident, is now covered by a combined Medicare and Medicaid plan. She lives on the $1,047 she receives monthly in Social Security Disability Insurance.

“Without Medicaid, I’d have to pay a Medicare premium every month, plus I’d have co-pays on 25 different medications, including three different insulins,” she said. “I would no longer be able to afford my Medicare premiums. This is going to be catastrophic. So has it kept me up at night? Yes.”

All of this is happening very quickly. We’re only a month into the second Trump administration and already the GOP’s slash-and-burn methods have unleashed chaos at a number of agencies. A small group of people brought together by Elon Musk, who holds more wealth than any human in history, is withholding funds for federal programs and firing workers at a head-spinning pace. Republicans who control Congress remain unwilling to rein in or even question Musk. 

It raises so many questions. Who will pay for all of this turmoil? What’s the goal of those with so much wealth and unchecked power?

“I am the grandchild of Holocaust survivors,” Grishman said. “The first people to be killed by the Nazis were disabled people. And that’s what’s going to be happening here. It’s the poor and the disabled who are going to be the first ones to go. This is a form of eugenics through and through.”

This isn’t the first time Republicans have gone after Medicaid. In 2017, members of the disabled community fought a GOP health care bill that included cuts to the program. During one protest, police pulled about 50 people from their wheelchairs and then arrested them outside the office of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Erin Gabriel remembers that GOP attempt to cut Medicaid and the price paid by congressional Republicans. A lot of them were voted out in the midterm elections. Perhaps the memory of that electoral bloodbath will cause some in the GOP to back down. That’s the hope, anyway.

“I think you’re seeing that same pressure on a lot of the Republicans who have been here, done that before,” Gabriel said. “They’re actually going to their leadership and saying, ‘Hey, we don’t want to take this vote.’ ”

They’ll have to deal with President Donald Trump though. Republicans in the House had trouble mustering the votes to pass their budget proposal this week – U.S. Rep. Summer Lee mentioned this in her remarks. But then Trump got on the phone and began calling GOP holdouts. They caved and fell in line.

All of the uncertainty adds to what’s already a stressful and difficult life for Toni Danchik. She’s getting by – but with a lot of help. In fact, a friend drove her Downtown on this day.

“I couldn’t even get my head around coming down here on my own,” she said. “On my own, I can’t do it.”

She looked down at the picture of Christine attached to her homemade sign.

“She’s a handful and a pain in the butt, and she’s my world,” Danchik said. “I give everything I can to her. But we need help; we can’t do it alone.”

Next week, Danchik will undergo surgery to correct an eye problem caused by Graves’ disease. She’ll be out for three days. In preparation, Danchik put together a three-page document to organize care for Christine.

“My parents, my husband, my son, my friends – they all have a role in taking care of her, bringing food, all this stuff, because her care is so voluminous and I do it almost all by myself. So when I’m down, there are 10 people that replace me. No joke. Not to toot my own horn, but caring for Christine is a lot. She’s worth it, but it’s a lot.”

And so now there’s this added stress of wondering what will happen in the future. How will she care for Christine if the proposed Medicaid cuts become a reality? What can she do to fight that possibility?

Toni Danchik, holding the homemade sign with pictures of her beautiful daughter, sighed. 

“Can we just get back to ‘regular hard’ instead of this ‘ridiculous hard’?” she said. “That is what I’m hopeful for.”

***

Below are highlights of the speeches:

Abby has a rare progressive and degenerative syndrome that we are still trying to learn more about. When Abby was very little, and doctors were still trying to figure out everything with her, we were told to enjoy what we had because it wouldn’t last. We were told to prepare to outlive her and to focus on making memories instead of plans.

Hearing things like that from multiple doctors is not something any parent should have to go through. But Abby is in so many ways a story of everything that can go right with the system.

Those early intervention therapists should have shown up wearing capes. They were incredible …. They are miracle workers. Physical, occupational and speech therapists. Vision and hearing therapists. They all descended on our home alongside one-on-one aides who went to school with her, teaching her how to navigate a world that just wasn’t designed for her. Medical tests, doctors’ visits, all of that, paid for through Medicaid.

Abby’s syndrome is progressive. She may eventually lose much of what she has gained. Her seizures will likely return and intensify, and as her condition progresses, we know she will need nursing care at home to help with her daily needs. But without Medicaid, we don’t know if when that time comes she will be able to access the care that she needs to be able to keep living at home with her family, with her brother and sister, and doing all the fun things that she likes to do. My daughter deserves to actually live, and not just exist.

— Erin Gabriel, mother of Abby, 15

I heard from a daughter whose elderly mother is in a nursing home and needs consistent care. Her mother’s Social Security is less than $1,200, but the cost of her nursing home is over $7,000. If Republicans cut Medicaid, this elder will be forced out of her home and they will no longer be able to get her the care that she needs.

If [the daughter] quits her job, she can care for her mother full time, but she can’t afford to do that and still put food on the table. She doesn’t know what to do.

Not only is this a tragedy for her, but [also] all of the people in this nursing home that might be shut down. Medicaid pays for more than 60 percent of nursing home residents. So if Medicaid is slashed,many of these homes can’t survive.

— U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale

The issue here in Pennsylvania is not an issue of too much funding. It’s an issue of too many people on waiting lists.It’s an issue of too many people making too little money. It’s an issue of too many people struggling and hoping that promises will be kept in relation to Medicaid.

There are too many people who wake up at 3.30 in the morning, stressed and concerned, hoping that the system that they put together can stay together. Hoping that their loved ones are going to be OK tomorrow. Hoping as a self-advocate that they’re going to be able to have the transportation assistance they need. Hoping that as a parent they’re going to be able to have the supports for their child in school that they need.

— State Rep. Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon

More than 120,000 of my constituents rely on Medicaid …. These are our neighbors. These are our family members. These are our friends. These are people with disabilities. These are kids. These are people all over our districts, all over this commonwealth of ours.

And the Republican answer that we just saw in Washington was to take away their health care to funnel money to the ultra-rich. It’s as simple as that. It’s a fiscally reckless grift. We know what will happen. People will be hurt. People will lose their health care. People will lose services they need.

I’ve already heard from hospital networks worried about closing rural hospitals. We know nursing homes will suffer. This is a reckless proposal.

– U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel

When Pennsylvania expanded Medicaid in 2015, we saw real measurable progress. 1.7 million people gained access to care. Hospital costs for unpaid care dropped by 32%. The influx of federal dollars bolstered our state’s economy, adding more than $3 billion annually to Pennsylvania’s GDP and supporting approximately 35,000 jobs. And now, all of this is on the chopping block.

– State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill

Our city is home to more than 50,000 people who rely on Medicaid, meaning that this city relies on Medicaid. Medicaid is essential to keeping our city healthy. It is 1 in every 3 women that deliver babies. The greatest quality of life is our ability to make sure that our parents can deliver children, and without Medicaid, this is a strong, strong sign that we are against the quality of life and not about advancing life.

– Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey

We need to think about all of those people, like myself, who are being told to put on our boots and pull up our bootstraps. But what if we can’t put our own boots on? We need the support to be able to move forward, to serve our country.

– Josie Badger, advocate in Pittsburgh’s disability community