LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – Thursday marked the 61st anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, two programs created specifically to give older Americans access to health care and financial stability in retirement. Democratic lawmakers and health policy leaders used the occasion to warn that seniors are already feeling the effects of cuts to Medicaid and Social Security enacted over the past year.
On a press call organized by the advocacy group Defend America Action, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, said the effects of Medicaid cuts passed as part of last year’s federal tax and spending law are showing up among families caring for aging parents and spouses. She said Medicaid funds nearly two-thirds of nursing home care nationally and is also the primary funder of home and community-based services, which she argued are cheaper than institutional care and should be expanded rather than cut.
Dingell described sitting with a woman in a hospice unit whose husband was dying and who did not know how she would support herself once his care ended.
“She had taken care of him, but there was no money left, and she didn’t know what was gonna happen to her,” Dingell said. “We shouldn’t be dealing with that in this country.”
Dingell also said older Michiganders have told her directly that rising costs are forcing hard choices. “Too many seniors are already making impossible choices between paying for groceries, housing, prescriptions, and other necessities,” she said, recounting a conversation with a woman who told her she has to cut her pills in half to make them last longer.
Former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who led the agency under President Biden, said the cuts are also straining the hospitals and long-term care facilities older patients depend on most.
“We are already starting to see across the nation that hospitals are delaying their expansions, they are closing their labor and delivery care units because that is the least profitable part of the hospital, and they can’t afford to keep it open,” Brooks-LaSure said, adding that patients are having to travel farther for care as a result.
She said Medicaid cuts are forcing states into difficult budget trade-offs. “They’re gonna have to look at one of three things: do they cut payments to providers, do they cut optional services, or do they cut optional people,” she said, noting that home and community-based services are often optional for states to fund while nursing home care is mandatory, meaning states facing shortfalls may be more likely to scale back in-home care options that many seniors prefer.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Arvind Venkat, a Democrat who continues to practice as an emergency physician, said he has already seen the effects of coverage losses firsthand in his emergency department, including patients who delayed care over cost concerns.
“I have personally seen patients who have died as a result of delaying care and coming to the emergency department when it was too late, because they were so afraid of the cost of healthcare,” Venkat said.
He said many of the Pennsylvania residents he represents who could lose Medicaid coverage are seniors, not the kind of cases the administration has described as improper. “These are the senior citizens that I represent who are on fixed incomes who are simply trying to stay in their homes and have a basic access to healthcare,” he said.
Rich Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said seniors’ Social Security cost-of-living raises are already being outpaced by rising Medicare costs. He pointed to a change announced this week to Medicare Part D subsidies that he said would raise monthly premiums for millions of directly enrolled seniors and increase out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs.
“We stand here with the Social Security trustees telling us within five years, mandatory cuts will come to benefits up to $500 a month on average,” Fiesta said.
He also said Social Security Administration staffing cuts are affecting seniors’ ability to access benefits they are owed. “Offices are being closed, you can’t get a walk-in appointment, sometimes it’s taking months,” he said, adding that more Americans are turning 65 each day than ever before, even as the agency’s workforce has shrunk.
The Trump administration has defended the Medicaid changes as efforts to cut waste, fraud and abuse in the program rather than reduce coverage for eligible seniors and other beneficiaries.
The federal law cited by speakers on the call reduced Medicaid spending by roughly $1 trillion over a decade, according to nonpartisan budget estimates, and allowed enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits to expire, a change that has raised marketplace premiums for older enrollees in particular. Separately, the Social Security Administration has cut more than 8,000 staff positions since the start of 2025, its largest workforce reduction on record, a change advocates say has slowed service for seniors seeking benefits.
