Josh Hawley, Missouri won’t forget you voted to gut Medicaid and SNAP | Opinion
Dear Sen. Josh Hawley:
Missouri Faith Voices condemns the passage of the disastrous budget reconciliation bill by the U.S Senate and House of Representatives. This big ugly law will take health care away from the working poor and food from the mouths of people in need.
Missourians will die.
Senator, we further condemn your decision to turn your back on those in need and the vulnerable by flip-flopping on the bill and voting yes.
To borrow a question from the book of Genesis, “What have you done?” The blood of your fellow Missourians cries out from the ground. By voting for this bill, you have betrayed the people of the Show-Me State and your own principles.
On June 16, we commended your defense of Medicaid, urging you to stand firm and vote against the bill. Ninety-five members of the clergy from a broad range of traditions signed our letter, including the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Baptists, Episcopalians, Reform Jews, Pentecostals, United Methodists, Disciples of Christ and Presbyterians.
For more than a decade, Missouri Faith Voices — a statewide multifaith, multiracial, nonpartisan organization — has been working to ensure that vulnerable Missourians have access to the health care they need. We led the organizing that helped to make Medicaid Expansion a reality in 2020. We represent more than 100 Missouri congregations.
Until last week, you defended health care for working Missourians. Just last month, you told St. Louis Public Radio: “These are not people who are sitting around. They’re on Medicaid because they cannot afford private health insurance, and they don’t get it on the job. And I just think it’s wrong to go to those people and say: ‘Well, you know, we know you’re doing the best you can. We know that you’re working hard. But we’re going to take away your health care access’ — which by the way they pay into with their taxes.”
We agreed with what you said back then. It is wrong to take away health care access from working people and it is wrong to vote the way you did on July 1. As the Congressional Budget Office has stated, 130,000 to 160,000 Missourians would lose coverage under this horrendous piece of legislation.
This big ugly law also takes food out of the mouths of children by imposing draconian cuts on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. According to the Missouri Budget Project, more than 270,000 children in the state rely on SNAP. By taking food off their tables, you endanger their health. Far from becoming a voice for the working class, you are lining the pockets of the elite. Your country club populism stinks to high heaven.
So does your decision to abandon Missouri’s hospitals and nursing homes, which will suffer a catastrophic drop in revenue because of reductions in the provider tax. We are not fooled by the Band-Aid of a paltry rural hospital fund, which will not begin to make up for the cuts, nor the delay in implementation. Bloodletting delayed is still justice denied.
We hoped that you would stick to your principles and defend Medicaid in the Show-Me State. We were gravely disappointed when you abandoned your moral compass under the pressure of the Senate leadership and the administration.
We will remember this vote. We will not forget who stood firm with the working people of Missouri. We will remember all who abandoned them for the sake of political expediency and ambition. The blood of your fellow Missourians cries out.
Sincerely,
Missouri Faith Voices
Rev. H. Russell Ewell III, board president, Webster Groves
Rev. W.T. Edmonson, vice president, Jefferson City
Mr. Forestal Lawton, treasurer, Kansas City
Dr. Michael Dunn, secretary, Jefferson City
Rabbi Doug Alpert, board member, Kansas City
Dr. Bob Hill, board member, Kansas City
Rev. Chelsey Hillyer, board member, Jefferson City
Rev. Susan Schmalzbauer, executive director, Nixa