We can still stop the GOP from destroying Medicaid

But it's going to a national pushback that scares Republicans more than Trump.

Tuesday night, House Republicans took a big step toward destroying Medicaid and then lying to blame the millions who will lose health insurance for their plight.

But it’s just a first step.

AOC nails what you must know:

That means we need to ramp up our efforts fast.

Our only hope is making Republicans in vulnerable seats—there are no moderates—more scared of their voters than of Donald Trump. And given the radicalization machines at X, Fox News, and AM radio, that’s very fucking difficult.

So what to do?

Call your Republican reps if you have them—House and Senate. Use this tool about the damage the GOP budget would do to shame them. Tell them (and everyone) that the Children’s Hospital Association opposes these cuts. Then, please share what you told them on social media in any way you can.

BONUS: Join or start a Musk or Us event. We’ve got to be visible and in the faces of every possible Republican.

More from Rogan's List here.

When can we stop them

If you’re like me, you may need to dig deeper. You may want to know, for instance, that Medicaid fraud primarily comes from providers, not families who rely on it.

You’ll also probably appreciate this thread from Bobby Kogan, the Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress, which I’m posting below.

I need it for reference because it’s so good at explaining exactly when we have the power to stop this:

House Rs just passed the budget resolution, the first step in their process to enact a bill that'd kick millions off Medicaid & cut SNAP down to just $1.60 per person per meal on avg while cutting taxes for the top 0.1% by $278k - all while increasing the debt 🧵on what's to come and WHERE TO FIGHT

So, the next step is for the House and Senate to agree to an identical budget resolution. The Senate passed a very different version. It called for the same SNAP cuts but much smaller Medicaid cuts - and no tax cuts. This is the next place where we can stop them.

If we fail, then after that, committees can begin writing legislation. Usually the House goes first. If taxes are involved, the House must go first. At least one chamber needs to go through the full committee markup. In this thread, I'm going to assume that's the House.

So, each committee will write legislation that adheres to the instructions set in the budget resolution. Here's what the House budget resolution calls for:

Each committee then marks up that legislation, where only the members of the committee can vote on it. This will be the first time we get the full details on what they're trying to do. They won't be able to pretend they aren't cutting Medicaid anymore. This is the next place where we can stop them.

If we fail, then after that, all the various committees' bills as amended go to the Budget Committee for markup. This is the next place where we can stop them.

If we fail, then it goes to the House floor for passage. This is the next place where we can stop them. When they tried to repeal the ACA in 2017, we initially stopped them here in March of 2017 before they eventually passed it through the full chamber in May 2017.

If we fail, it goes over to the Senate. If the House went through the full committee process, the Senate can slap on a full substitute and go straight to the floor. The Senate will then move to proceed to the bill. This is filibuster-proof. This is the next place where we can stop them.

If we fail, then there are 20 hours of debate, after which we move to vote-o-rama. At that point, they consider amendments until there are no more amendments or everyone agrees to move to final passage. This is the next place to stop them, and it's where we finally stopped them on ACA repeal.

If we fail, then the House and the Senate need to pass identical versions. The House can just take up the Senate version and pass it, or they can go to conference and both try to pass what comes out of conference. This is the next place where we can stop them.

The single most important thing you can do, by a parsec, is show up at a town hall w/ your GOP member and talk to them face to face. Heroes like @indivisible.org helped organize last time. People drove for hours to spend just a few minutes talking to their members. But we saved lives because of it.

The next most important thing you can do is call your GOP member's office every single day. When I worked in the Senate, in every single weekly all-staff meeting, we went over the phone calls we'd received.

Tell them you don't want any Medicaid cuts. Tell them you don't want any SNAP cuts. Tell them you don't want huge tax cuts for billionaires. Tell them why it matters to you. *Make them* hear WHY Medicaid matters to you. That is how we convinced Murkowski, Collins, and McCain to vote no.

This will be a very hard fight, but it's worth it, because people matter. We owe it to our family members who rely on Medicaid and SNAP. We owe it to our friends. We owe it to our neighbors. We owe it to the people we'll never meet.

You can read my explainer on the reconciliation process here.