Congress has enacted the Big Brutal Bill and Donald Trump has signed it into law.
This bill is deadly.
According to researchers from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts plus other health care cuts—the largest in history—will result in the deaths of 51,000 people per year. Those deaths include 18,200 people who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, 20,000 people who will lose health care coverage due to the elimination of the premium tax credit for the Affordable Care Act, and 13,000 deaths due to staffing cuts at nursing homes.
At a time when so many are struggling to afford the basic costs of living including groceries, new data from the Urban Institute shows that 5.3 million families will lose $25 or more per month in SNAP benefits, with the average such family losing $146 a month in help paying for food. Sixty-two percent of the families experiencing these very large SNAP losses include children.
All of this is being done in order to pay for extending the Trump tax scam—making tax breaks for the rich permanent—and funding Trump’s mass immigration detention and removal machine.
Congress needs to hear from you. Send a message thanking those who stood up and voted against this monstrosity of a bill, or send a message to your members of Congress who voted for it, admonishing them for their vote.
The CWLA 2019 National Conference, Advancing Excellence in Practice & Policy: Meeting the Challenge of the Family First Prevention Services Act, will be held April 9 – 13 at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. With the framework of the CWLA National Blueprint for Excellence in Child Welfare, this conference will highlight successful strategies and practices organizations and communities are using that can be leveraged to meet the challenges and opportunities of the Family First Prevention Services Act and help ensure that children and families flourish.
Both the CWLA National Blueprint and Family First Act are calling for a multi-system, community-based approach to protecting children and supporting families. The conference will feature evidence-informed/evidence-based programs and practices and their related policies and tools that will accomplish the goals of the Family First Act and lead to the successful implementation of the National Blueprint.