April is the eighth annual Medicaid Awareness Month. Sorry to say, but it seems to be the lawmakers who need more awareness, not the people. With the proposed $800 billion federal funding cuts to Medicaid, they are telling the public we are expendable. West Virginia alone stands to lose more than $5 billion in Medicaid, so how does that translate?

One side of the aisle says it will be catastrophic. The other side says we won’t feel the cuts. However this shakes out, West Virginian lives at stake.

For many of us regular folk, we are all too aware of the affordable healthcare and services we could lose. Some 28% of West Virginia residents are enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP. Look around you next time you’re at Kroger or Walmart. It’s 1 in 4 people with some form of affordable healthcare — children, low-income people of all ages, veterans, people with serious disabilities, and people who take care of their children or elderly parents. While politicians are playing checkers with numbers, the rest of us could face a compromised healthcare future, with no fallback plan.

A yes vote to cut Medicaid means that veterans, people with disabilities, low-income people, children are all expendable. Did you know that half the births in WV are covered by Medicaid? If our lawmakers vote yes to cut Medicaid, it means they are willing to risk the lives of women and babies.

More than 75% of elderly in nursing homes rely on Medicaid. A yes vote is a vote to throw the elderly out on the street. A yes vote could cut hours, beds, services, specialists from rural hospitals and health centers like Valley Health Care.

There are more questions than answers, though. In March, Riley Keaton, District Deputy for Congressman Riley Moore, was kind enough to talk with me, but he had no answer to my questions about how this will impact the people who rely on affordable care, except that it’s a policy question.

It is unacceptable and reckless to cut now, ask questions later. I challenge policy makers to learn about the people who rely on Medicaid.

It is wrong that our friends, family, neighbors and people we haven’t met yet will become the collateral damage of a political war within our own nation. No matter how we voted, we are West Virginians who love our home, our family and our state.

Margaret Bruning

Elkins