On Wednesday, Pete Buttigieg took up the mantle of everyday working Americans to illustrate the devastating effects that Republicans’ planned cuts to Medicaid will have.
The budget bill working its way through Congress would slash nearly $1 trillion from the program, which covers over 71 million Americans.
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“We clutched each other in a long hug in the hallway standing just outside the door, trying through tears to reassure each other,” Buttigieg and his husband recalled.
According to a Congressional Budget Office(CBO) report published Saturday, the changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in the Senate version of the bill would result in an increase of nearly 12 million uninsured people by 2034.
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The cuts are designed to offset an extension of the president’s massive tax cuts enacted in his first term, which primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans. Another report from the CBO estimates the Republican budget will add over $3 trillion to the federal deficit.
Against that background, Buttigieg spoke with Stacy, a mother of twin girls in North Carolina, about the real-world effects the Medicaid cuts would have on her family. Her daughters were born very prematurely, and one of them requires around-the-clock care.
“Medicaid is what makes it possible for their family to live under one roof,” Buttigieg explained. “Medicaid is what makes it possible for Emma to get the care that she needs and stay at home rather than be in a hospital or other facility.”
Asked how life would be different for Emma and her family if that Medicaid access disappeared, Stacy said the program “is the foundation of every minute, every action, every part of Emma’s life. Everything that she does, everything that she eats, every therapist that helps us, happens through Medicaid.”
Stacy and her husband already have medical insurance through his job, but it doesn’t cover everything required for their daughter’s care. Medicaid was designed to fill in the gaps in that coverage.
“I could start a clock if Emma loses her Medicaid and the home and community-based services that come with it that are not covered by our primary private insurance,” she said. “I can start a clock on when I would have to surrender her to a hospital. Primary insurance through my husband’s work does not cover her formula. It doesn’t cover her feeding supplies. It doesn’t cover her private duty nursing, and it doesn’t cover any of her therapies. Like, we would be adrift and desperate, trying to beg, borrow or steal other feeding supplies to keep her alive.”
One of the “myths” Republicans are peddling to justify the cuts, Buttigieg said, is that there are millions of people enrolled in the program that don’t need it: “People who don’t work, or somehow deserve to be in the situation you’re in.”
“Yours sounds like a family that has done everything right, has worked so hard in order to take care of each other and take care of the twins, and this is exactly why we have things like Medicaid in this country, to support families and keep families together,” he said. “That depends, in part, on Medicaid being there for you.”
Stacy said it’s important for lawmakers to understand families like hers aren’t just a statistic in a budget bill.
“As they’re making these hundreds of billions of dollars decisions, they’re talking about my daughter, and they’re talking about families like ours, the future of our kids, their ability to continue and grow and live at home in their communities and be safe here. And isn’t that what we all want for our kids? To reach their absolute maximum potential and do the things that they want to do in their community, as part of society? We only want the best, and these programs are in place to help families like ours, to help kids like ours.”
“I think sometimes the president and the majorities in Congress want America to think that they’re the steamroller, that nothing can stop them, that they’re going to do what they’re going to do, and it’s just too bad,” Buttigieg said.
Thank you to Stacy for sharing her story – and for doing what any parent would do to make sure their daughter has the care she needs to live at home.
As this bill on GOP Medicaid cuts goes back to the House, it’s not too late to remind Washington politicians just how much is at stake.
— Pete Buttigieg (@petebuttigieg.bsky.social) July 1, 2025 at 7:47 PM
But he held up the example of the GOP’s threats to repeal Obamacare, and how active resistance ended that attempt in the president’s first term.
“He had promised… to end Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act. They really were trying, and yet they were stopped. I think that’s an incredibly important thing to remember at a moment like this, that in some ways, is very similar,” Buttigieg said.
It’s stories like Stacy’s — real world examples shared with officials caught up in what Buttigieg describes as the “inside baseball that’s taking up way too much of the headlines” — that put a human face to those cuts.
“I hope you know how powerful your voice is,” Buttigieg said. “There’s so much moral authority when somebody is looking them in the eye, when you’re sharing your story and making sure people understand what’s really at stake, so they can’t just be caught up in the politics of it. So I hope that you’ll continue to do that.”
“I know it’s hard,” Buttigieg added. “I can tell from how emotional this conversation has been. I mean, I look at our twins, and we went through some challenges with them. I can’t imagine some of the challenges you’ve been through, even on a good day.”
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