The "Genuinely" Disabled Don't Have to Worry About Medicaid Cuts

Trump's "Big Ugly Bill" will kick 12 million people off Medicaid, many of whom are disabled. They're trying to convince the public that we're scammers in order to justify leaving us to die.

By now I assume most people have heard about the “Big Ugly Bill” and the Medicaid cuts it contains.

The Trump administration has decided that cutting taxes for billionaires and increasing funding for ICE are higher priority items than ensuring the most vulnerable have access to healthcare and food assistance.

The cuts are expected to leave 12 million people without medical care, many of whom are part of the disability community. In fact, more than 1 in 3 people with disabilities rely on Medicaid. ¹

This bill will cost disabled lives. It’s appalling that the government has decided that healthcare is the place to create savings, but it’s not surprising. Disabled people have always been seen as expendable, and it will only get worse under fascism.

Our lives are not valued. We’re considered ‘useless eaters’. People who take tax dollars without giving anything back.

It’s a narrative as old as time, but it’s one the Trump regime are relying on to justify the cuts. They’re counting on society’s general disdain for disabled people and their own internalized ableism to prevent them from seeing what this bill really is… eugenics in action.

To distract from their cruelty, Republicans have been saying that these cuts won’t impact the ‘genuinely’ disabled. Only those ‘able bodied’ people taking Medicaid and sitting around playing video games.

There’s no such thing as the ‘genuinely’ disabled. This is a trope designed to make society doubt that we’re really sick. To make them see us as fakers, scammers, malingers or worse.

To hear these folks talk about disabled lives you would think that when disability occurs you get an official placard recognizing you as one of the ‘real’ ones. They act like it’s that black and white.

The reality is that most disability occurs in the grey. Many disabilities are invisible. Chronic illnesses can be very hard to diagnose. Lots of people can’t accept that they’re disabled and/or can’t access the medical care they need to get a proper diagnosis.

There are so many barriers to diagnosis and care that people die waiting for social support and healthcare. They’re still disabled, it was just never made ‘official’.

Image Description: A group of protesters, one holding a sign that says “Medicaid Cuts Will Kill”. Courtesy of NBC News

People Don’t Fake Disability, They Fake Being Well

There are far more disabled people pretending to be well than there are pretending to be sick. Being on disability is not fun. You’re forced into legislated poverty. Treated like a “useless eater”. Shunned, abandoned and constantly questioned.

It can be incredibly dehumanizing.

The process to be approved for social supports is arduous and lengthy. Once approved you have to constantly re-prove that you’re still disabled. It is punitive by design. They want to dissuade people from even attempting to get support.

Many of us with invisible illnesses go to great lengths to hide them. We pretend to be “fine”. We push our bodies to the breaking point. Why? Because we know how ableist our society is. We know we will be treated better if people see us as “normal”.

It took me years to admit I was disabled, and even longer to publicly identify as such. I’m now proud of my disabilities. I’m proud of myself for being authentic and fighting for my rights and the rights of people like me. But going public cost me.

I lost friends and family. I lost followers. I lost the respect of people I thought cared about me and valued me as a person. I got a painful lesson in just how much society hates disabled people, and that lesson is ongoing.

People told me I was stealing their “joy”. That they “don’t do sick”. That they missed the old me. They demanded that I go back to hiding it. That I do a better job of faking being well for their comfort. When I didn’t, they walked away.

The more outspoken I’ve become the more people have disappeared. The more The Disabled Ginger grew, the less I heard from the few friends I had left. People cut ties for no other reason than they didn’t want a disabled friend. They didn’t want to deal with it.

Disability is not a choice. I miss the old me too, but this is my reality now. I’m proud of who I’ve become, but I am suffering. I’m exhausted and in pain every day. I can’t do most of the things that used to come naturally to me. I’m dependent on caregivers.

I didn’t consent to this. No one asked me if I would like to live this way. None of us get a choice, and disability will happen to most people eventually.

After enduring the loss of friends, family, dignity, respect and personal freedom…I now have to deal with society saying most of us are faking.

I now have to fight for disabled people to keep the bare minimum support they’re given because people are convinced we’re scammers.

I’m exhausted. We’re all exhausted. Being disabled is a 24/7 job. There’s no breaks. No vacation. No raises. No one would do this for the “perks” because there aren’t any. This is not a system worth scamming.

We deserve good healthcare, housing and an affordable living wage. We don’t get that.

What we do get is barely enough to survive, and now people want to take that away too. They want us to “prove we matter”. They want us to demonstrate we have value and they’ve unilaterally decided that value must come from work.

Screw that. We all matter. Our worth shouldn’t be dependent on our job, health or the size of our bank account.

Many people can’t work, and that’s ok. You don’t have to work to have value. Many can’t volunteer, and that’s ok too.

We all have intrinsic value just by being who we are, and those with disabilities deserve care and support.

The US government has decided that most people on Medicaid can work, so they’re going to force the issue. They assume this will weed out the ‘genuinely’ disabled and find all those ‘scammers’.

They’re wrong. All this is going to do is result in a lot of suffering, disability and death. People can’t suddenly be capable of work just because you threaten them with loss of healthcare or food assistance. They can’t suddenly be less disabled just because you don’t want to provide support.

These budget cuts will kill people, and the majority of those people will be disabled. Genuinely.

They Can Just Apply for An Exemption!

They shouldn’t have to apply for a medical exemption, they’re already on Medicaid. They’ve already been approved.

The medical exemption to avoid the work requirement is designed to do the opposite of what it claims.

It’s designed to strip more people of their healthcare .

Not the ‘scammers’ either, it’s designed to kick off disabled people.

How do I know this? Because disabled people struggle with paperwork. Red tape is difficult for us. Many of us live in poverty and can’t afford the doctors appointments required to get forms filled out.

The people implementing the new work requirement know this as well. They know that many people never get on SSI or Medicaid because they can’t get through the punishing application process.

If they add in additional layers of paperwork and hoops for people to jump through, many will simply let their coverage lapse because they are financially, mentally or physically incapable of providing the documentation required.

The cruelty is the point.

Being unable to jump through punitive hoops should be further proof that someone is disabled, but instead it will be used to deride them as ‘fakes’ who never should have received benefits in the first place.

They will be informed they must work or lose their benefits, and since they will be unable to work, the government will be able to strip them of their healthcare.

This is how they’re choosing to save money. By punishing the weakest and most vulnerable among us and convincing the general public that it’s a good thing because those people were stealing from them in the first place.

It’s eugenics, and the sooner people realize that and help us fight back the better.

If you think I’m being hyperbolic, consider the fact that the Secretary of Agriculture recently held a press conference where she was asked if there would be amnesty for farm workers with respect to immigration policies.

Many farm workers are undocumented immigrants, and there are concerns about food shortages because they’re being detained and deported in large numbers.

The concerns are valid. These are difficult jobs involving intense physical labour for often sub minimum wage. Most Americans don’t want to do that type of work, which is why immigrants are the ones ensuring that food ends up on our tables.

When asked about amnesty, Brooke Rollins stated that it wouldn’t be needed because the 34 million ‘able bodied’ people currently on Medicaid can take those jobs instead.

That’s right, the plan to avoid compromising the food supply is to force disabled Americans to work hard labour jobs. Jobs they will be physically unable to do. Jobs that will kill them.

They claim this is because they want a “100% American workforce”, but in reality it’s a perfect two for one extermination plan.

They get to deport immigrants and punish the disabled at the same time:

Healthcare Is A Human Right

The US is one of the only developed countries that doesn’t give its citizens healthcare as a basic human right.

That’s the real reason they have one of the unhealthiest populations. It isn’t the red food dye or vaccines. It isn’t the fact that they don’t drink raw milk or ‘wellness’ hard enough.

It’s the fact that people can’t access preventative healthcare. In many cases they can’t access any healthcare without risking bankruptcy or financial ruin.

This leads them to delay or avoid care altogether, which makes for a lot of chronic illness.

Rather than fix the issue and ensure healthcare for all, the government would rather kick millions of people off whatever medical care they’re currently able to receive. They would rather you believe that your tax dollars are going to ‘scammers’ then to genuine people who need help and support.

Here’s a radical thought… what if we agreed that everyone should get care regardless of ‘how disabled’ they are? Regardless of the colour of their skin, the size of their bank account or their job? What if we said that even the so called ‘scammers’ should still be able to access medical care because healthcare is a human right?

If we did this, we would actually save money. The system for approving SSI and Medicaid in its current form is so drawn out and punitive that it costs a ton to implement.

Investigating and harassing disabled people who need benefits isn’t free. They need insurance agents, investigators and lawyers. They need paper pushers and people to man the phone lines. They need to employ people to catch these ‘scammers’.

Those people cost money, and I guarantee you it’s far more than what’s being spent on the odd person who manages to ‘trick’ their way into medical benefits.

You know how I know this? It’s almost impossible to scam your way onto Medicaid.

If fraud and abuse is occurring, it’s at the corporate level, not the individual level. People on Medicaid are not sent a cheque every month, they’re simply given healthcare. It’s up to the hospitals and clinics to disburse the Medicaid funds. Perhaps the government should look there for the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’.

Regardless of whether there actually IS any fraud, the fact remains that all people need and deserve medical care and a decent compassionate society recognizes this.

The US needs to keep up or be left behind. It’s long past time they give their citizens healthcare instead of wasting time and energy debating who’s ‘deserving’ of access.

And please, stop saying the ‘genuinely disabled’ don’t have to worry.

We are all worried, we are all genuine, and we need your solidarity now more than ever. Don’t take away our healthcare and social supports. Don’t leave us by the wayside.

Are you on Medicaid and concerned you will lose access? Have you struggled through the approval process for healthcare, SSI, disability or any other social supports?

If you have any tips for those going through it, please leave them below. Likewise if you need support, drop a comment so the community can help you navigate this difficult time.

If you’re struggling with Long Covid,

Julia Doubleday

wrote an excellent article about the proposed Medicaid cuts and how they impact the Long Covid community in particular:

Long COVID patients among those likely to be targeted under new Medicaid work requirements

1. https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/5-key-facts-about-medicaid-coverage-for-people-with-disabilities/