Letters

At a town hall meeting, Iowa Republican U.S. Senator Joni Ernst dismissed a constituent’s concern that Medicaid cuts would cost lives with this callous comment: “We’re all going to die sometime.” The firestorm of criticism provoked Sen. Ernst to double down with more off-putting comments.

I’m sure we all know someone whose life has been extended due to life-saving drugs and access to good health care. I am one of those people. I’m glad for my health insurance, which allows me access to the health care providers I need to see.

In their article “As Congress Debates Cutting Medicaid, a Major Study Shows It Saves Lives,” New York Times health reporters Sarah Kliff and Margaret Sanger-Katz inform us that: “The expansion of Medicaid has saved more than 27,000 lives since 2010, according to the most definitive study yet on the program’s health effects. Poor adults who gained Medicaid coverage after the Affordable Care Act expanded access were 21 percent less likely to die during a given year than those not enrolled, the research shows.”

Medicaid provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives budget bill do not directly attack expanded Medicaid, but if the bill is signed into law as is, it will make it less likely that some states will continue the expanded Medicaid program.

At least billionaires will get a nice tax cut.

Mike Anthony

Westhampton

Anthony is a former chair of the Southampton Democratic Committee — Ed.