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 or Provision 2: Similarities, Differences and Things to Consider
Community eligibility is a huge success, allowing high-poverty school districts to offer school meals at no cost and reducing paperwork for schools. School districts will need to decide if they want to opt in for the 2019-2020 school year by June 30, 2019 and should be planning for implementation now. Other school districts have found Provision 2, a longstanding federal option, to also be a great way to offer meals at no cost. Join this webinar to understand the similarities and differences between community eligibility and Provision 2, and the factors that may help school districts decide which provision to implement.