VIDEO: CLIPS From Nashville’s Public Hearing On Lee’s (ILLEGAL?) Medicaid Block Grant Proposal
This week throughout Tennessee public hearings for comments about Governor Bill Lee’s possibly illegal block grant proposal are being held. A Block Grant would hand a giant lump sum of medicaid dollars to a group of people who have already shown they don’t actually care about the suffering of poor Tennesseans, having rejected billions of Medicaid expansion dollars for no non-political reason.
It has cost us BILLIONS. We’re #1 in Rural hospital closures, medical bankruptcies, at the bottom in opioid deaths, infant mortality, the list goes on. Medicaid expansion would help all of those things. A block grant will only exacerbate them.
The hearing in Nashville was emotional, but Lee and the TN GOP wouldn’t know because they weren’t there, and they didn’t have anyone there to record it or take note of the comments.
We were there though. Below are a few clips.
Rep. Jim Cooper: “I had hoped Gov. Lee’s religious faith would’ve given him more of a heart for the poor, especially as we anticipate the Day of Prayer he has called.”
Cooper exposes Lee’s (illegal?) Block Grant as a bad deal for Tennessee & our most vulnerable:
“These aren’t just numbers. There are real people suffering… This is a faithful state- we should be helping the poor, not hurting them.”
Holler co-Founder Kanew speaks up:
“If it wasn’t for my family there are times I wouldn’t have anything to eat. It’s so humiliating.”
DEVASTATING testimony from a woman who lost Medicaid to a paperwork snafu. Governor Lee’s proposal will lead to more of these stories, not less: