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.
Take Action
Subscribe
Donate
Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food for you or your family? Gallup put this question to nearly 118,000 households throughout the United States in 2015 as part of an annual survey aimed at measuring food hardship in…
If you read CHN’s latest Human Needs Report, posted earlier this week, you know that Congress continues to squabble over funding for the Zika virus. They left for the fourth of July recess without approving additional funds. And, thanks to an in-depth article that appeared Sunday in the Washington Post,…
As you’ve (hopefully) heard by now, CHN held a June 16th briefing on Capitol Hill entitled “What Works—and What Doesn’t—to Reduce Poverty and Expand Opportunity.” The briefing included experts from a wide range of organizations working to combat poverty and featured remarks from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. This week, we…
Editor’s note: Earlier this month, we discussed CHN’s June 16 event, What Works – And What Doesn’t – To Reduce Poverty and Expand Opportunity. As part of that event, Melissa Boteach, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, delivered a presentation on House Speaker…
CHN just released our latest edition of the Human Needs Report, our regular newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations. This edition includes articles on appropriations and gun control, the Supreme Court Decision on immigration, Zika, TANF, the latest House GOP proposals, and more. See below for the full analysis and links to each piece…
As we noted in this blog post last night, House Democrats began a “sit-in” yesterday on the House floor, imploring House leaders to vote to end the loopholes that prevent background checks for gun sales at gun shows or online and to allow gun sales to be denied to those…
Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) went to the well of the House of Representatives today and asked colleagues to join him. His impassioned message: “What will finally make Congress do what is right” to reduce gun violence? “We can no longer be patient,” he said. And so he and many other…
On Tuesday, July 19, the Coalition on Human Needs will host our Human Needs Hero reception. This is our only fundraiser of the year and your support enables CHN to provide resources such as the Voices for Human Needs blog you are reading right now. Voices for Human Needs features…
Editor’s note: Last week, we discussed CHN’s June 16 event, What Works – And What Doesn’t – To Reduce Poverty and Expand Opportunity. As part of that event, we heard the story of LaJuana Clark, who has struggled with homelessness and under-employment. This is LaJuana’s story. We encourage you to…
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) wants government to be even-handed. Her own state’s Governor Scott Walker would like to expand mandatory drug testing to participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and to some applicants for unemployment benefits. Wisconsin already requires drug testing for poor parents seeking cash assistance (Temporary…
Poverty has been in the news a lot lately. Two years ago we marked the 50th anniversary of LBJ’s famous War on Poverty. This year is the 20th anniversary of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which supplanted Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). And a GOP…