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.
Community Eligibility Adoption Deadline is Quickly Approaching: Get Your Questions Answered Here
Community eligibility is a huge success, reducing paperwork for schools and increasing school breakfast and lunch participation. School districts that are still on fence on whether to adopt for the 2019-2020 school year will need to decide by June 28, 2019 (note: by statute, the deadline to apply is June 30, 2019, but this year the 30th falls on a Sunday; contact your state agency for clarification). This webinar will feature policy experts and a school district staff who operating community eligibility. The webinar will cover important considerations about adoption, such as community eligibility’s relationship with Title I and state education funding, strategies for increasing school meal participation and boosting your budget, and tips for marketing your program to families.