Joni Ernst. Credit Line: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images / Profimedia
At a meeting organized in her native state, Iowa, the Republican Senator Joni Ernst was insistently asked about the cuts in Medicaid – the health program for Americans with low incomes – included in the budget project of the Chamber of Representatives. A participant told him that “people will die” because of these cuts. Ernst's reply has sparked indignation in the room, reports NBC News.
“Well, we will all die in the end,” said Republican senator Joni Ernst, during a municipal assembly at a high school in Parkersburg, the central-northern part of Iowa.
Her remark was greeted with massive disapproving murmur in the room.
The exchange of replies began when a participant reproached Ernst that the draft law offers significant tax reductions to the very rich, while eliminating certain people from Medicaid and food assistance programs.
How did it all start
Ernst replied that the only people who risk being excluded are those who, according to the initial definition of Medicaid, should not have been eligible.
“They are not eligible according to the original definition of Medicaid, and will be removed from the Medicaid lists, allowing those who are truly eligible to stay in the program,” said the senator.
She then claimed that 1.4 million immigrants without documents benefit from Medicaid. This figure, also invoked by the White House and other Republican leaders, comes from an analysis of the Congress Budget, which mentioned that a provision of the draft law could lead to the loss of insurance for 1.4 million persons (including, but not only, those without verified immigration status).
“They are not eligible, so they will be eliminated,” said Ernst, when he was interrupted by a participant who cried: “People will die!”
After her fatalistic response, Ernst reproached the participant: “What you do not want to do is listen when I say we will focus on the most vulnerable.”
Democrats immediately reacted to Ernst's reply that “we will all die.” The chairman of the Democrat National Committee, Ken Martin, appreciated that the senator “said aloud what is normally said.”
Martin said that the remark shows that the Republicans do not care “if their own voters live or die, as long as the richest enrich themselves, and that is why they force a budget law that will deprive millions of Americans, including children and old people, of medical assistance and food.”
