As women of faith, we believe in the sanctity of all life and commit ourselves to do our part to protect those who are most vulnerable.
A ‘per capita cap on Medicaid’ is scheduled to take place this May 2025 which calls for urgent attention and action. A proposed shift in Medicaid funding could impact countless numbers of the approximately eighty million Americans currently enrolled in this health insurance program, jointly funded by states and the federal government and a lifeline for low-income individuals and people with disabilities.
According to CHA nearly five out of eight nursing home residents rely on Medicaid, one in five people are covered by the program, and forty-one percent of all births are covered by Medicaid. A per capita cap on Medicaid could potentially reduce access to care for millions of people in the United States. CHA Medicaid Briefing: https://youtu.be/mBZkaOSqflU?si=ifOevPTvaJmxiNOw
See below “A Message from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious”
Thank you to all who participated in the briefing provided on May 1 by the senior staff of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) on the status of Medicaid. We were grateful that so many of you also asked your justice and communications personnel to join you in this effort to raise awareness and protect Medicaid access for millions of low-income individuals and families.
Our colleagues at CHA provided many compelling reasons for why we need to begin advocacy efforts now to protect Medicaid. They also underscored the belief that women religious can be especially effective advocates on this issue given not only our influence and moral authority, but also because so many Catholic sisters are Medicaid recipients themselves. We strongly encourage you to put into action some of their suggestions.
All who participated in the briefing received the links below that provide excellent resources for how we can take part in the work to protect Medicaid – whether through prayer, letter-writing, or through public awareness campaigns that you could do locally. If you have not already done so, please share these with your sisters, as well as colleagues, associates, benefactors, and the various publics with which you interact. Please be especially attentive that your communicators, justice personnel, and executive leaders have these materials and make use of them. For those who were not able to attend the May 1 virtual briefing, please take the time to watch the 45-minute recording of it.
We are very grateful to CHA for its outstanding leadership in healthcare and for taking the lead in advocacy efforts in this critical matter that could impact millions of people including many women religious who are dependent upon Medicaid for their own care. Please take the time to review and utilize what the CHA staff has prepared for us.
- Recordingand slide deck from today's briefing
- CHA'se-Advocacy tool for communicating with policymakers
- Medicaid messages toolkit, featuring:
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- Ready-to-use social media posts
- Key messages and supporting statistics
- A sample op-ed for local publications
- Medicaid prayer and reflection resource
CHA's Medicaid Makes It Possible web pages are regularly updated with new stories, action alerts, videos, statistics, and more. We encourage you to bookmark the page and visit often for the latest information.
May our efforts to protect this lifeline for so many people bear great fruit.
