‘No cuts to Medicaid,’ advocates urge at Fort Payne town hall

‘No cuts to Medicaid,’ advocates urge at Fort Payne town hall

Progressive Women Action Coalition, Cover Alabama, local advocates discussed federal, state threats to Medicaid coverage

FORT PAYNE, Ala. – Federal and state policymakers should work to expand health coverage instead of slashing Medicaid, health care advocates said Tuesday during a town hall at the Fort Payne Opera House. More than 60 community members attended the event, which highlighted the impacts of proposed funding cuts to Medicaid.

DeKalb County’s Progressive Women Action Coalition organized the town hall. Speakers included advocates from Cover Alabama as well as local health care providers and community members directly impacted by Medicaid.

A full recording of the town hall is available here.

Congress voted this month for a budget resolution that could set the stage for nearly $900 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade. If enacted, these cuts could have a devastating impact on more than 1 million Alabamians – many of them working families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities – who receive their health coverage through Medicaid.

Medicaid cuts would ‘strain our entire health care system’

“In DeKalb County, 21% of our residents rely on Medicaid, and most of them are children and people with disabilities,” said Debbie Smith, Alabama Arise’s Cover Alabama campaign director and a Fort Payne resident. “These cuts wouldn’t just hurt them – they’d strain our entire health care system. When rural hospitals lose Medicaid support, services get slashed, wait times grow, and care becomes harder to access for everyone, even those with private insurance. Our community can’t afford that.”

Local pharmacist Matthew Taheri shared how he already has seen the impact of coverage losses.

“We’ve had patients ration their medications because they couldn’t afford it,” he said. “And we’ve seen those patients get admitted to the hospital because their condition got a lot worse.”

Taheri also emphasized the broader economic consequences of potential Medicaid cuts.

“Alabama Medicaid is actually one of the best payers in the state. Their model is pretty good. If there were cuts, the effect on pharmacies would be terrible – it’s already bad. Medicaid has been one of the reliable payers, the backbone of Alabama. If you were to cut that, it would get so much worse.”

‘I couldn’t survive without this program’

Angel Garrett, a DeKalb County resident and advocate for the Governor’s Office on Disability, spoke about the real-life consequences for people who depend on Medicaid.

“As a disabled woman, it is incredibly disheartening to have to worry about my medical coverage being cut. It is already at the bare minimum,” Garrett said. “We need to focus on the expansion, not the dismantling of Medicaid. Medicaid is a vital program for people like me. I couldn't survive without this program.”

Nearly 200,000 Alabamians fall into the health coverage gap, meaning they earn too much annually to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance. In DeKalb County alone, more than 5,000 adults are in the coverage gap.

Event organizers urged community members who care about protecting health care access to contact their lawmakers and demand: “No cuts to Medicaid.” 

“With personal ties to Medicaid through their own experiences or those of loved ones, many of our members deeply understand just how vital the Medicaid program is,” said Michelle Harris, president of the Progressive Women Action Coalition. “It became clear to us that many in the community are not fully aware of the serious threats and critical challenges the program is facing.“