Washington, D.C. — As the Trump administration continues to threaten the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the federal courts and to propose deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is releasing a new video in a social media campaign to educate Americans on what’s at stake. The campaign will tell stories of Americans such as Casey Dye, a nurse who works in home pediatrics from Monroeville, Pennsylvania, and her daughter, Chessie, who was diagnosed with developmental language disorder. As Dye explains in the video, the administration’s inconsistency and attempts to repeal the ACA and dismantle Medicaid creates uncertainty for millions of Americans.
“[President Donald] Trump’s secret plan for health care? I don’t think he has one. You know, it’s top secret. He’s going to let us know when the time is right. Well my question is, when?”, she says.
According to The Washington Post, the administration, which has failed to produce an alternative plan to the ACA as promised, has stalled on plans to write a bill and is focusing on toppling the law in the courts. In July, after dozens of failed attempts by the Trump administration to repeal the ACA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit heard oral arguments in the case of Texas v. Azar, a 20-state lawsuit backed by the Trump administration seeking to overturn the entire ACA. Caught in the balance of the court fight are people such as Chessie and 20 million other Americans who would lose health care coverage, as well as more than 130 million who could lose preexisting conditions protections nationwide if these efforts are successful.
One of President Trump’s central promises to this country has been that he wouldn’t cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security “like every other Republican.” However, the reality has been different. Over the next 10 years, President Trump’s budget proposal would spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid, $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare. According to Dye, her daughter’s condition has improved because she was able to receive coverage under the Medicaid expansion. She says that if the Trump administration’s efforts are successful, that could all be undone.
“She has made tremendous progress. She went last year from being a C student to this year, she was an A-B student. The other day, she had a play date. It was her first play date that wasn’t a birthday party,” she says. “It was a little girl in our neighborhood that wanted to play with my daughter. That’s stuff she was never able to do before, and that’s all due to Medicaid expansion that’s helped so many Americans.”
Like many Americans, Dye is concerned about the chaos from the administration and the mixed messages regarding the future of her daughter’s health care. What exposes the chaos and the disconnect between the administration and the concerns of American families more than anything are President Trump’s erratic Twitter habits.
“He changes his mind on a daily basis. I don’t think he really knows what he wants. I think he just has a thought for the day, and he goes ahead and says it. But at the end of the day, our lives, my daughter’s life, is in Trump’s hands,” she says. “I would like for him to tweet what his plan is to save Medicaid and Medicare, and how he’s going to protect preexisting conditions, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. He doesn’t have a plan.”
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