Bernie Sanders: “my office and I suspect all Senate offices are getting a whole lot of calls from senior citizens who are experiencing a…”

“my office and I suspect all Senate offices are getting a whole lot of calls from senior citizens who are experiencing a great deal of fear and anxiety with all of the confusion and chaos that is currently going on here in Washington. When we have the President and my Republican colleagues talking about cutting Medicaid by some $880 billion--let us be clear--they are not just talking about throwing millions of children and others off of the health insurance they have; they are also talking about cuts to community health centers, which receive about 43 percent of their funding from Medicaid and where millions of seniors go to get their primary care. So cutting Medicaid impacts primary care. At a time when we have a major crisis in nursing home availability--I know that is true in Vermont; I expect it is true in almost every State in the country--let us understand that Medicaid provides approximately two out of three seniors with the funding they need to live in nursing homes. Make drastic cuts in Medicaid, and it is going to be harder for your mom, your dad to get into a nursing home or to stay in a nursing home. Cuts in Medicaid would be a disaster for seniors in nursing homes. But it is not just Medicaid cuts that worry seniors.…”