The following guest post was written for Daily Kos by Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. This post does not represent an official endorsement by Daily Kos.
Okay, so should we cut health care to fund tax giveaways to the rich?
Ask voters what they think about that idea, and they’re not shy: They hate it.
Ask Republican lawmakers, and it’ll be obvious that it’s been their goal all along.
A poll of voters in battleground House districts found that 68% opposed cutting Medicaid to pay for tax cuts and 22% supported the idea. But the plan is barreling forward.
A protester holds a sign that reads, “Save our lives … don’t cut medicaid.”
If you’re one of the 68% opposed to Medicaid cuts—especially if you’re represented by Republicans in Congress—now is the time to get loud.
First, take a second to learn what the GOP is proposing and why it’s bad. One GOP idea is to charge poor people more for their health care, and another is to reduce federal support for Medicaid expansion—which would kick 5.5 million people off their coverage. Another Republican bright idea is to make it harder to enroll in Medicaid, causing 2.3 million people to lose their benefits.
That’s just a partial list of the GOP’s terrible ideas—there are many more, each of them rancid. Their proposals kill jobs, hurt the economy, and make the lives of the poorest even harder. If passed, the GOP’s attacks on health care would cut short tens of thousands of Americans’ lives.
This is not a game.
Why cut Medicaid? The GOP’s goal is to find $880 billion to help pay for a giant tax cut for the ultra-wealthy, who are the Republican Party’s priority.
This isn’t a surprise. During the last GOP trifecta, their first big bill attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We defeated it. The second was a gigantic tax cut for the ultra-rich, which passed and blew a hole in the federal budget.
Cutting Medicaid to make way for tax cuts for the rich is oligarchy in action. But we don’t have to let it happen.
Here’s your to-do list:
First, make some phone calls. 5Calls.org makes it easy. This page has facts about the fight for Medicaid, a call script, and a handy tool for calling your legislators. Make those calls, and put a reminder in your phone to do it every weekday.
Next, think about who you know who might care enough about this to take action. Send this along to them, drop them a text, or make another call to ask if they’d be up for joining you.
Voila. You’re an advocate and an organizer.
Then, join MoveOn’s phone bank on the evening of May 8. You’ll call Democratic voters in key districts and, if they agree, just press a button and connect them to their own members of Congress.
Next you’ll get involved with a group organizing protests on the ground. There are a ton. Sign up with some organizations like MoveOn, Indivisible, and various disability rights groups to get alerts.
And one last thing: let’s recommit to ensuring that these extremists lose their MAGA majorities in 2026.
We should be talking about expanding health coverage and bringing costs down, not slashing it and driving costs up.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin
For Wisconsinites, all of those ideas are laid out in Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal. Wisconsin Republicans, led by State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, are poised to once again slash these programs from the budget this year. But once we win a trifecta in 2026, we can make Evers’ proposal a reality in Wisconsin in 2027.
When we flip the House in 2026, including newly blue seats in Wisconsin, we can make these GOP assaults on Medicaid a relic of the past, not a daily nightmare. And when we win a federal trifecta in 2028, we can move forward with the vision that every single Democratic president has worked to advance, step by—often painfully incremental—step.
We can do the work to ensure that every American has the health care that every human being deserves, as a right rather than a privilege, without costs that force working people to choose between medicine and food.
Once we win that trifecta, we’ll wonder how it took so long. But now, we must prevent the GOP’s demolition of millions of Americans’ coverage—and exact the greatest possible political price on those attempting to steal from the poor to enrich the already wealthy.
Fighting a fight like this—win or lose—is the right thing to do. And it shows voters whose side Democrats are on: theirs.
This is a battle where the vast majority of the country is on our side, and MAGA is on the other.
You can help to keep the pressure on the Trump administration by donating now to @WisDems. Help fuel our year-round grassroots efforts to hold the GOP accountable, and help elect Democrats in Wisconsin up and down the ballot. Chip in here.
