SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Potential cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are causing uncertainty for Arizonans, some of whom expressed concerns during a town hall hosted by Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego on Monday.

“The impact is now on a micro level. We feel it now,” Phoenix resident Quianna Brown told the senators.

Brown and her husband, Joe Wiskur, consider themselves “regular, blue collar, everyday Americans.” They were seeking answers about the health care for their adopted 10-year-old daughter, who has behavioral issues and diabetes.

“Our child has needs that are greater than some other children, and to meet those needs, she requires a lot of medical coverage,” Brown said.

The town hall came just weeks after the House of Representatives approved a budget that could cut at least $880 billion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

“In that resolution, it said that they needed to find $850 billion to cut from this one committee. In that one committee, they basically control two big chunks of money: Medicare and Medicaid,” Gallego told the attendees.

But what exactly these cuts will mean remains unclear.

“How do we prepare for what may come down the hatch? We’re trying to shield ourselves before we’re wounded,” Brown told the senators.

Through the state’s post-adoption assistance, Brown’s daughter is covered by AHCCCS, which is Arizona’s Medicaid program.

“When you adopt a child, you promise that child,” Brown said. “To be in a situation where you’re afraid that you can’t keep it, that’s a real powerless feeling.”

President Donald Trump denied on multiple occasions that he would touch Medicare or Medicaid other than removing undocumented immigrants from the system, but the new budget suggests otherwise. Arizona’s GOP delegation aligned with Trump’s fiscal agenda.

“Stopping waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid … strengthens Medicaid,” Rep. Eli Crane said in a post on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on February 27.

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On the same day, Arizona Rep. Juan Ciscomani, who represents the 6th District, said in a video on Instagram that the budget resolution is step one in a long process to shave off the size of the government while also keeping programs like Medicaid, federal Pell Grants, Head Start and SNAP which assists low-income families in buying food.

“What we did is we passed a framework, step one, into some guidance on how much money we need to reduce the federal government by. … For five, seven weeks, we’re going to be hashing out where these dollars are going to come from,” Ciscomani said, adding that the resolution did not cut Medicaid or Medicare.

Kelly warned that leaving 750,000 Arizonans without health insurance would further strain the health care system and lead to higher costs.

“We have to convince our Republican colleagues that this is a really bad idea, and this reality hurts people, and when people don’t get their normal health care, they’re going to rely on the emergency room, and they’re going to get sicker, and ultimately it winds up being more expensive,” Kelly said.

Both senators at the town hall agreed that tax cuts to billionaires are prompting the cuts to Medicaid, echoing the Democratic members of the Committee on the Budget who asserted that the budget proposes $4.5 trillion in tax breaks, with the majority going to the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

“You go and talk to some of these members of Congress and tell them, ‘If you cut Medicaid to give money to billionaires like Elon Musk, you’re going to have electoral consequences.’ That’s the only thing they understand,” Kelly said.

“There’s no way they can get to those tax cuts without cutting Medicaid, the math doesn’t math,” Gallego said.

Brown pleaded for Kelly and Gallego to take action at the Capitol, and share a message with them: “Would you mind telling your colleagues in Washington that when they’re burning down this house, there’s people still inside? My kid is inside.”

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Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

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