It doesn’t matter one way or the other, but there’s either some manner of miscommunication / misunderstanding going on here or that’s not completely accurate / applicable to the relatives I mentioned.

For instance, I found this:

ten states that use their own eligibility guidelines are even stricter than the SSA. Moving to one of these states could result in a denial of Medicaid coverage

A couple of things to note: I did actually look around a bit and found multiple sources that suggest the same, just that the one I linked to said it most concisely and one of the states my relatives lived in is on that list. Obviously I’m not claiming that those sources are more accurate than your professional expertise, and I’m aware that just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it true. Also, wanted to reiterate that this happened decades ago, which makes me wonder if things could have been a little different back then.

I somewhat agree, but I bet it’s a bit more complicated than that. Whether rooted in reality or not, part of me thinks that a lot of those 80 million people (if the numbers I saw are accurate) are comprised of children and some quantity of people who can’t or aren’t really mentally competent enough to make rational voting decisions. Feels like it’s hurting the most vulnerable, rather than the people who are literally asking for it.

Mostly, I’m just a little surprised to hear that the number is so high. If 25% of the population alone is on medicaid, and assuming there’s any where near comparable percentage of people on medicare, it’s hard to understand the argument against universal and/or single payer healthcare systems.

I forget where I read this recently and I can’t confirm the veracity of this claim, but supposedly 80 million Americans are on Medicaid. If that’s true, that’s close to 1/4 of all Americans that would be affected by this.

I’m honestly sad that anyone would feel this way, because of the implications. Having said that, I understand why you’d feel that way, even if the presentation is regrettable.

If my statement could be interpreted in any way congruent to your first paragraph, then there’s clearly been a significant degree of miscommunication and/or misunderstanding.

I’ve reread my statement and there’s no mention of shopping around for the best deal, so I’m going to chalk that one up to you misunderstanding what I wrote. As for the use of smorgasbord, I understand that it might suggest abundance in some way, though in my part of the world it generally conveys the concept of variety more so than abundance. Either way I chalk that up to miscommunication on my part.

I already mentioned it: I firmly believe that if there’s any chance of stopping this mess, it’s going to require working together and finding common ground with everyone who has been harmed, regardless of voting history, political affiliation, morals, and rationale. Divided we fall. We’ve already seen how being divided works out.

I have family members who moved from state to state around 20 years ago until they found one that would approve their disability statuses so they no longer had to work and would qualify for the whole smorgasbord of government assistance programs including medicaid.

They think most people who are receiving these benefits are just lazy and that there would be more money for people like themselves who need that money if these programs were slashed. They believe only those other (i.e. lazy) people will lose benefits.

There’s literally no reasoning with that mentality. They seem to think this is all entertaining.

I guarantee you that once they are personally affected, and I’m pretty sure they will be affected at some point, they’ll turn on this administration.

I have many problems with this, but the hardest pill to swallow is that I’m going to have to be the bigger person and accept them with open arms because at the end of the day there’s no stopping this unless we’re all united.