Nydia Velazquez fights Trumpism, by George Fiala

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez has been busier than usual during this first month of this Trump administration.

On February 19, as the Republicans in Congress began hashing out a replacement for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), she hosted a media event at Manhattan’s Gouverneur Hospital.  Velazquez was joined by fellow legislators Hakeem Jeffries, Joe Crowley, Jerry Nadler and Jo Ann Simon. They all spoke of the urgent need to preserve the gains made by the ACA.

Earlier during the first month, she made news by skipping Trump inauguration. Instead, she was a major participant at the huge woman’s demonstration held in Washington the next day.

Then, on the morning following Trump’s executive order banning travelers from seven Muslim countries, she and Manhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler traveled to JFK’s Terminal 4. They rescued an Iraqi immigrant who was an American hero. He spent ten years helping US forces as a translator. His efforts put him in danger in his home country, and was to be admitted to the US as a refugee. Trump’s order went into effect as he was in the air, and upon his arrival he was detained by customs. Nadler and Velazquez got him released, and he was able to join his family in the US. A week later the ban was lifted by a federal court.

Don’t Make America Sick Again
The theme at Gouverneur was that the Republicans, if left unchecked, would “Make America Sick Again,” a phrase coined last month by Senator Chuck Schumer.

Velazquez opened the event saying, “We are starting to hear the broad outlines of the Republican plan in the media. What we are seeing is not good. It should not be called “Repeal and Replace,” but “Repeal and Displace.”

Recent articles in the NY Times and elsewhere reveal that the Republicans are working on a plan to downsize Medicaid and the tax credit system built into the ACA. The result would be to shift the burden on healthcare spending from the affluent back to the poor. This would result in a rollback of many of the gains made under the ACA – a program which gave 20 million Americans healthcare insurance for the first time.

“That is a disgrace and we are not going to let it happen,” exclaimed Velazquez.

Under a Republican proposal, a state like New York would receive substantially less money for Medicaid. Patients who finally had their bills covered by insurance would revert back to emergency room charity cases – putting a major strain on a hospital system already starved of funds.

Queens Congressman Joe Crowley warned his upstate Republican legislators that this would also result in higher property taxes for their constituents, as local laws use property tax revenue to help fund rural hospitals.

Cascading Effects
The presentation, which included input from hospital union leaders, doctors and nurses, administrators and patients, left one with the dawning realization that the destruction of the ACA would have negative cascading effects.

Jobs would be lost, the population would be sicker, and the downsizing of preventive care would lead to higher overall healthcare costs as preventive care would diminish for the lower income population.

“Responsibility for having insurance should not be shifted back to the patients,” said Katherine Hanley, a veteran Gouverneur doctor. She added, “People should not have to choose between buying groceries or buying their asthma inhaler.”

Nydia will no doubt continue her busy activist schedule. She is the ranking Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, and dealing with a rollback of Dodd-Frank protections, as well as tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy will be the next challenge.

Adding to all this a possible trade war, faltering international relations and the slashing of environmental protections – as well as an assault on press freedom – present a depressing picture of our country’s possible future.

Although, as Trump himself noted in a campaign event held the same day – the stock market is going up.