It needs widespread reading, thought, and recognition.
MinnReformer's commentary -
Breast cancer survivor: Medicaid and SNAP are matters of survival
The author, Suzi Gadbaw, a 69-year-old white breast cancer survivor who lives in Duluth. She writes:
The complications of my cancer diagnosis and treatment left me with severe pain. I have to take medicine seven times a day just to manage that pain. Without Medicaid, I wouldn’t have been able to survive the treatment. And without SNAP, I wouldn’t have had the strength to fight for my life.
For 14 years, I worked at the Salvation Army in Duluth, helping neighbors get back on their feet. Before that, I was a retail worker, a teacher’s aide for kids with autism, and a librarian. I’ve spent my life taking care of people. Now, after everything, it feels like my country is turning its back on me.
With the passage of the GOP mega-law, President Donald Trump and members of Congress are making huge cuts to the very programs that have kept me going. Medicaid paid for my surgeries, doctor visits, and every prescription during cancer treatment. It still covers my medications and regular checkups to keep me healthy and make sure the cancer doesn’t return. Losing that coverage would mean no access to an oncologist, no pain medication and no way to afford the pills that keep me alive.
SNAP helps me access the food my body needs. Since retiring, I’ve lived on just over $800 a month in Social Security benefits. That barely leaves enough to cover rent, food, clothing, and other necessary bills. I receive $113 in SNAP benefits per month, which is about $3.74 per day. It’s not enough, but it helps. I don’t buy junk food and always shop the sales. Still, I spend another $100 of my own money on groceries every month.
When I got cancer, I applied for SNAP so I could afford fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat. The foods that help keep me healthy aren’t cheap. If my benefits are cut again, I’ll be forced to live on less healthy, microwaveable meals. A healthy diet isn’t optional when you’re recovering from cancer. It’s part of survival.
[...] Medicaid and SNAP aren’t luxuries. They are the reason I’m still here. I’m grateful for the support I’ve received, but that doesn’t mean I feel safe. Cuts are coming, and with them, the threat of losing everything I’ve fought so hard to hold onto.
I’m not just scared — I’m angry. And now I’m using my voice to speak out. [...]
[...] U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber of the 8th District is celebrating kicking people off these life saving programs. Now he’s prancing around Minnesota during the Congressional August recess as if he didn’t just throw millions of us under the bus. But we need more leaders who protect people, not abandon us.
Tom Emmer has House Republican seniority over Stauber, and voted similarly, as well as being in leadership, floggint the flawed bill favoring the wealthy one percent. That is mentioned because I suffer Emmer as "my Rep" because of how others in MN CD6 voted, while as a Bernie and AOC Progressive I was left to vote for lesser evil, the corporate friendly party of New York's Schumer and Jeffries.
Those two "leaders" can gin up donor money, but will not make the nation much better.
The two parties play ratchet, a game where Republicans pass laws giving more to the wealthy when in a majority in DC and when replaced by a Democratic Party majority it does nothing to undo the other party's mischief. So like a ratchet it only turns one way
The Bipartisan Ratchet has too long been the American Way:
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| Bless the ratchet keeping big money donors fat and happy, both parties - every election. |
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| Medicaid sign at U.S. Senate Democrats’ press conference on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom) |
NOTE: As a Senate Democrat exhibit it is sound. HOWEVER: Medicaid's support in Schumer's party is a cut less than Israel's. That is not only a problem, it's an existential threat to all but the wealthy.
I also note - I spent time - roughly two years this decade as the caring person for a dear woman suffering from breast cancer who did not survive. Time has passed but the weight loss, chemo burden, and pain she suffered are still vivid images in my mind. She was a former Boeing employee, with a carryover Cadillac health plan as a corprate benefit, and the care she received was best in Seattle, but not enough.
Because of that the issue is personal. Myself, at eighty I am on Medicare and Social Security. I suffer a foot condition needing care. That puts me directly into the camp angry about Trump's supreme indifference. I await the eventual passage of Medicare For All.