Older adults participate in a falls prevention awareness day of action in Fort Worth, Texas, in September. Around the nation, doctors, lawmakers, advocates and patients are ringing alarm bells over congressional Republicans’ proposals to slash billions of dollars from federal Medicaid funding, which could especially hurt older Americans. (Rick Kern | Getty Images for National Council on Aging)
Dr. Fred Levin has been watching with growing alarm the national debate around federal cuts to Medicaid. He’s responsible for the medical care of about 100 older adults at the Community PACE center in rural Newaygo, Michigan. For his patients, Medicaid isn’t just a safety net — it’s a matter of life or death.
“If left to see to their own needs, a lot of them would stay in their homes and would slowly die,” he said. “They wouldn’t be able to get to their doctors’ appointments unless they had a family member to help. They wouldn’t get social care. They wouldn’t have people coming into their homes and seeing the bed bugs or the lice in their hair. They wouldn’t get their medications.”…