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.
View a streaming captioned copy of the webinar here. The presenter slide deck is available here.
Jared Bernstein, top Biden economist serving on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, will join CHN to explain how the COVID relief legislation now moving through Congress is the right size, with the right policies, to get us on the road to economic and pandemic recovery.
Called the American Rescue Plan, this robust $1.9 trillion plan proposed by the new Biden administration supports COVID vaccines and health care; cuts child poverty in half; helps the unemployed; provides more nutrition aid, housing assistance, one-time payments, child care, and paid leave; supports education and other state and local services; and much, much more.
Moderator Ellen Teller of the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) will field questions for Jared. We’ll then hear more real-world stories about how the pandemic is hitting our communities, and how this COVID relief package will help. And we’ll finish with CHN’s Executive Director Debbie Weinstein updating you on where things stand in Congress, and what you can do to ensure that help goes where it’s most needed.
If you’ve joined other CHN webinars, you may have seen Jared Bernstein, then with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, make economic predictions about poverty and income. He’s a top economist and a great explainer focused on addressing inequality and the needs of people with low incomes.
This webinar will be closed-captioned. Even if you can’t attend be sure to register to get a recording of the webinar, slides, and other resources. Watch the recording below: