Kathleen Vinehout, Mark Miller, and Janet Bewley held a public hearing on the upcoming Medicaid cuts last Friday in Eau Claire. The Republicans in Madison had only held hearings in two cities, Madison and Milwaukee. Sen. Vinehout felt there was a need for hearings in other parts of the state, and convened the meeting in Eau Claire. The afternoon was very enlightening, as it made some of the ramifications of the cuts much clearer to me (and it became obvious that the ramifications were much worse than I had imagined).
There was testimony from many different people at the hearing, some of whom had traveled quite far to testify. Nobody testified in favor of the cuts. I have included an audio recording of the first part of the hearing, as well as the slide show that was presented.
The testimony was very powerful, including multiple health-care practitioners, and people who have loved ones and relatives who face losing all of their health-care benefits, possibly facing health crises or death.