Slideshow: rally to stop cuts in Ogdensburg

OGDENSBURG — About 150 people rallied Saturday to protest feared federal cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and veterans' programs.

They heard St. Lawrence County health care providers and others speak about the devastation cuts would create.

Protesters held signs in front of City Hall that read “Stop the Cuts,” “Medicaid Cuts Kill” and “NY21 Relies on Medicaid.," among a variety of others.

One of the signs said 72% of nursing home residents and 40% of children are Medicaid recipients in our 21st congressional district.

Speaking to the crowd in front of City Hall, more than a half dozen speakers encouraged citizens to take action to ask North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik to oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

“Decades of inaction makes it clear that the current people in power are not listening or willing to act to avert the collapse of Medicaid and vital healthcare programs,” said Steve Knight of Colton, retired CEO of United Helpers. “So, it is up to us to elect the people who will listen and take action.”

United Helper provides nursing home, home health care, behavior health clinics and post-hospital rehabilitation services throughout St. Lawrence County.

Ginger Storey-Welch, a retired Colton-Pierrepont Central School teacher who helped organize the rally, said the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been tasked with cutting at least $880 billion from the budget over ten years.

 “It is mathematically impossible to do this without making significant cuts to Medicare and/or Medicaid,” she said.
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program are part of the national safety net, covering about 80 million people..

“Were it not for Medicaid, and the very compassionate healthcare workers who took care of me in some of the worst moments of my life, I would not be here today,” said Natalia Singer, St. Lawrence University Professor of English, emerita.    Growing up in a single-parent, dysfunctional low-income family, she developed osteoid osteoma in her senior year of high school, and Medicaid paid for her treatment.

“I know there are hundreds of children in this county, and millions across this country, whose futures are in question because of the outrageous greed of the richest Americans whom the Republicans are beholden to,” she said, urging people to protest the cuts to Stefanik.

“Thank God for Medicaid. That safety net is the reason I’m speaking today,” said Katrina Hebb, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Potsdam. Her young child had received Medicaid for his needed surgery.

“Medicaid is a medical safety net for everyone in the U.S,” said retired physician Sandra McCloy of Potsdam. “We need Medicaid and Medicare. I don’t know what we would do without it,” adding cuts would be inhumane and not compassionate.
Judith Sanford, a retired registered nurse and hospital discharge planner who worked in Ogdensburg and Potsdam, said the 1,129 nursing home beds in St. Lawrence County are not enough to address the need.
Nursing homes can be more than $10,000 a month in the county, a cost most local residents can not afford, she said, adding Medicaid pays for about two-thirds of county nursing home residents.

Sanford said Medicaid saved her son’s life when he was an infant with a life-threatening hernia and she was laid off from work.

Herb Bullock, a disabled wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran from Canton, said he is concerned about possible cuts to veterans'programs. The U.S. Veteran’s Administration is “a lifeline for people like me,” he said.

Knight, who retired from United Helpers in 2021, said Medicare rates for nursing home residents have not increased in 15 years. Stefanik never replied to “months of calls and requests” about his pleas regarding “ridiculously low Medicaid rates,”  he said.

United Helpers was forced to close its Adult Home in 2018 when daily Medicaid reimbursement was about $43 per day for 24/7 care of residents, Knight said. United Helped had to close its largest nursing home in 2021 and its enriched housing program in 2022 because of low Medicaid reimbursements, eliminating 240 care and support options.

Crystal Collette, President of Planned Parenthood of the North Country New York, also addressed the crowd.

“Planned Parenthood of the North Country New York stands with everyone here today in demanding that our representatives stand up to billionaires controlling the purse strings of our tax dollars. We demand Medicaid, and countless other essential federally funded programs, be preserved to ensure the health of our community,” she said.

Several times members of the crowd chanted “Stefanik doesn’t care about us” and drivers honked their horns as they drove by.

Storey-Welch asked the crowd to hold hands at the close of the rally. “Together we are stronger,” she said, urging people to contact Stefanik to oppose cuts.

Medicaid enrollment grew under the Affordable Care Act and after the start of the Covid pandemic, but then started falling during the final two years of the Biden administration.