Rep. Greg Stanton says Trump’s budget plan would be a disaster for Arizona families

PHOENIX — Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona strongly disagrees with the budget resolution that the House of Representatives passed on Tuesday night.

“It has devastating impacts on families across Arizona,” Stanton told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Wednesday morning. “Once it’s once it’s fully implemented, over a half a million Arizonans are going to lose their health care.”

The bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts, according to The Associated Press.

U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton explains his vote on the budget resolution

“All of the Medicaid expansion that Jan Brewer led on just a few years ago, which has been so successful in increasing people’s access to healthcare coverage, all of that goes away,” Stanton said, referring to a former Republican Arizona governor.

He took umbrage with claims from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who said the bill wouldn’t cut Medicaid spending.

There’s no way to cut $2 trillion out of the budget without hitting Medicaid, Stanton said.

“The only way to accomplish that is massive cuts to the Medicaid program. That’s assuming they keep their hands off of the Medicare program,” he said. “They’re being disingenuous by suggesting that that is not the case because they don’t want to actually have to deal with the real ramifications of this decision that was made yesterday.”

How will the vote on the budget resolution impact those in Arizona?

Tuesday night’s vote on the budget resolution will have far-reaching impacts on Arizonans, he said.

“You simply can’t get the massive level of new tax cuts that they want to accomplish without doing cuts that will impact … over half a million Arizonans in their access to health care,” Stanton said.

This means many Arizonans won’t be able to see a doctor, he added.

“The only way for them to get health care would be to go to an emergency room, which means it actually ultimately increases the cost of health care in our system,” Stanton said. “So it’s bad for people, bad for health care.”

He also said cutting Medicaid is flat-out bad policy.

“It’s bad fiscal policy as well because so much of the Arizona economy — our hospitals, our community health centers — they also benefit from this program because they provide these services,” Stanton said. “So it’s going to be really harmful to the Arizona economy, as well.”

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