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 [ WELLNESS ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=13)

#  Pentagon Contractors Don’t Save Lives Or Money — Medicaid Does

March 20 2025

Written by Hanna Homestead.

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MEDICAID COVERAGE - The paper sheet crinkled under me as I shifted on the vinyl examination table. The doctor paused. “Hmm,” she said quietly.

This was January 2021. I’d patched together a few gigs since completing a masters degree program the previous year, but was still struggling to find full-time work at the height of the pandemic.

A nagging feeling told me not to delay my annual well-woman exam again, having skipped it in 2020 due to COVID-19 and being uninsured. And I’m glad I went — the doctor found a concerning level of precancerous cervical cells.

Cervical cancer was once a common cause of cancer death in the U.S., but increased access to preventive care over the last several decades has cut death rates by [more than half](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=50987434-dde7-4a7b-9d94-f3edcf27d520&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df). Federal funding for [Medicaid](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=032a99ae-4690-41a3-a8a5-0e67f847dd8a&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df), which helps states expand health care services to low-income populations, has [contributed](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=52e3b3ea-cf6c-40e0-baad-a2370cee2484&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) to this success.

So it was for me, too. Although I was unemployed, I was able to access the initial screening and follow-up treatments through Medicaid. (State Medicaid programs can have different names. In my state, Wisconsin, it’s BadgerCare.)

Thanks to this coverage, my case was detected early. I made a full recovery and subsequently landed a job with health care benefits. However, if it had been up to Republican lawmakers, this story may have had a very different ending. With Trump’s support, nearly every single House Republican voted to [pass](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=47556e01-ec77-4f94-a754-6c260a6736f5&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) a budget resolution that cuts an unimaginable $2 trillion from social services, especially Medicaid.

They’ve [packaged](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=5f7f70ff-8a80-4d2c-94dc-62a5b0fb0793&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) this attack on Medicaid as an effort to cut “wasteful” spending and punish the “[parasite class](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=e3e735ea-812c-4529-8a6a-5fcaf4461c85&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df).” That’s how billionaire Elon Musk — who was raised with a [silver spoon](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=6b64a4c0-8c1b-4113-a7da-20ad7edafde2&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) in an affluent, all-white suburb in apartheid South Africa — refers to Americans who use federal benefits.

We are not parasites. We are your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

The [vast majority ](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=89a2d4ee-0b1b-49f7-a1cc-6c6da1edf23b&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df)of Medicaid recipients are working or in school. Others have jobs that don’t provide health insurance or are temporarily unemployed, as I was. Medicaid is also a critical [lifeline](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=d78121f3-b578-41f2-b6f1-d87c10837d5d&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) for 10 million people with disabilities, two-thirds of seniors in nursing homes, 14 million adults who have a mental health condition or substance use disorder, and tens of thousands of children who receive mental health services in public schools.

More than [72 million](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=2f3dbe27-61c4-404a-aa59-ac6fd9b8b668&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) U.S. citizens — over 20 percent of the population — rely on Medicaid.

That includes over [33 million people nationwide living in congressional districts represented by Republican lawmakers](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=ba4bccf9-2763-4286-8a14-918a8c53c545&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) who are pushing for these devastating cuts.

Medicaid is an example of government success — access to health care like the screening and treatments I received [saves](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=e6e5d39e-3f31-404b-a8fd-2d600bac0bb7&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) lives and money. What’s so great about going back to an era where people die from preventable diseases?

That’s not all. While slashing Medicaid, [the GOP budget blueprint boosts spending](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=24b3b6ff-c910-4334-b930-cb8d5c7d7274&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) for Pentagon contractors, a [disastrous](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=f7b0eb34-987a-4b8d-8aed-ad113e371181&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) mass deportation policy that rips apart families and would forcibly displace millions of [taxpayers](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=7b1c871c-b7e2-4c96-a9c3-a3f4e17c35a6&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df), and $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.

I now study that spending for my work. And talk about waste and fraud.

If Trump and the GOP were truly interested in [saving taxpayer dollars](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=1c52b268-cd0f-4dbd-a1e5-45c048581193&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df), they wouldn’t be [increasing](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=24b3b6ff-c910-4334-b930-cb8d5c7d7274&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) the near-trillion dollar Pentagon budget, which has never passed an [audit](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=ef8c28de-3f90-422c-9a5a-e0eb4d7d6854&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df). Half or more of that spending goes to [war profiteers](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=d65aa379-2fa9-4026-a38a-8d38653eb8b4&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) — for-profit Pentagon contractors whose business models [rely on government handouts](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=506a00e9-0afc-4609-a4bf-97a7f3c22924&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) and who routinely overcharge taxpayers.

Elon Musk’s businesses alone have received at least [$38 billion](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=406bbabb-be3a-4d53-8011-52dfc4e15f9a&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) in government funding from the Pentagon and other agencies. What was that again about a parasite class?

Cutting effective, life-saving services to further enrich billionaires and [Pentagon contractors](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=7f14fa4b-8229-4377-9e59-15125bfbc9f0&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) like [Musk](https://ips-dc-org.jmailroute.net/x/d?c=45390929&l=b0195861-6cf1-4b57-ba91-04ab8dbbf7b9&r=ceb4f7e1-0ef7-40c0-908c-bf4188e0f8df) is the worst possible option. These things don’t save lives — Medicaid does.

We still have time to fight back against this dangerous budget. And we must. Our health and futures depend on it.

*(Hanna Homestead is a federal budget researcher with the National Priorities Project of the Institute for Policy Studies. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin. This op-ed was distributed by [OtherWords.org](http://otherwords.org/).)*

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