Don’t Let Our Communities Get Kicked Off Medicaid! Submit Your Public Comment Today

Friday is the deadline – make your voice heard in the fight for Medicaid before public comment closes! 

We will not stay silent while our access to healthcare is threatened! The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a rule about Medicaid work reporting requirements that will add barriers to care and threaten coverage for people living with HIV and other serious health conditions. We are going to flood them with a simple message: Don’t let our communities get kicked off Medicaid. The deadline to submit your public comment is this Friday, July 31.

Shout out to Barb Cardell and LaDawn Tate for creating the public comment template!

Medicaid work reporting requirements are a ploy to kick people off the program and making it harder for people with serious health conditions to stay on Medicaid is cruel. Even if you’ve never submitted a public comment before, we’ve made it as easy as possible. In this email you’ll find our guide for how to submit, a video about what the rule does and how to comment, and a template that you can adapt to share your story.

Read our guide below on how to submit a powerful public comment.

Check out the recording of our webinar for more information and a thorough walk-through of the process!

After you submit your public comment, email us at info@pwn-usa.org so we can celebrate your advocacy! You can learn more about the CMS Interim Final Rule, here.

#1: TODAY: PROTECT FEDERAL GRANTS FROM POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) introduced a sweeping proposed rule that will transform federal grantmaking – unless Congress steps in to stop it! This rule would allow the Trump administration to politically control all points of the federal grant process by setting priorities, determining who is eligible, and denying, suspending or ending federal grants without transparency. Essentially, the rule would allow the Trump Administration to weaponize federal grant funding to advance their racist, anti-trans, anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, and anti-working class policy priorities while simultaneously defunding research areas that they don’t like. The changes could impact more than $1 trillion in annual funding for health, housing, education, research, and other vital grant programs. People across the United States are flooding Congress’ lines today!

Learn more about the OMB proposed rule in the June Monthly Policy Update.

#2: THIS MONTH: TAKE ACTION WITH YOUR COMMUNITY

It’s time for August recess! Our members of Congress are coming home for the summer, but it’s not a vacation for them. During recess, Congress should be meeting with constituents in the district. This is the perfect time to ask for a meeting with their district office, go to a town hall, or find them at an event. 

• Are you feeling the impacts of the Medicaid and SNAP cuts from HR1? 
• Are you worried about the collapse of ADAP and looming cuts to HIV? 
• Are you outraged about the attacks on our trans and gender diverse siblings?
• Are you angry that ICE is disappearing our neighbors? 

Now is your chance to make sure your members of Congress know how the policies they vote for impact their constituents at home.

TAKE ACTION: No matter how you want to engage, we have the tools for you:

• Hold an in-district meeting
• Raise your issues at a town hall
• Birddog them at an event

Are you interested in organizing in-district but don’t know where to start? Email us at info@pwn-usa.org so we can connect with you! Together, we got this.