If Doug Mastriano Becomes Governor, He Will Slash Medicaid, Cut Our Safety Net, and Destroy Our Home Care Union
Watch and share our new video ads from Jacinta, our home care leader in Harrisburg, about how Doug Mastriano will cut vital Medicaid, home care, and other safety net programs that caregivers, consumers, seniors, and adults with disabilities depend on. (Scroll below to see Doug Mastriano’s dangerous agenda).
Here’s what you can do:
1- Visit vote.pa to make sure you’re registered to vote and sign up to vote by mail.
2- Volunteer to phone bank and knock on doors to “get out the vote” using our Mobilize link.
3– Watch and share our video ads below with your friends on Facebook.
4- Text five friends and make sure they have a specific plan to vote for Josh Shapiro on Election Day, Tuesday, November 8th, 2022.
Jacinta, Home Care Worker: Doug Mastriano Will Slash Medicaid that I Rely On For Insurance
Doug Mastriano Wants to Cut PA’s Safety Net – Home Care Workers Need Living Wages and Dignity!
Home Care Workers Deserve a Seat at the Table – Doug Mastriano Wants to Destroy Our Home Care Union
Doug Mastriano has refused to release a detailed budget plan and answer questions about his fiscal priorities if he were to become Governor. But the information he has released is shocking. Mastriano’s proposal to eliminate property taxes would cripple public education in the state, a terrifying prospect on its own merits, but a clear signal how far Mastriano is willing to go to harm working families and decimate Pennsylvania’s vital programs and services.
“[Mastriano’s plan] would essentially obliterate what our public schools are,” PSEA vice president Aaron Chapin told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4. “That would lead to staffing cuts. We would see essentially over 100,000 school teachers as well as support professionals being eliminated from districts in every corner of this state.”
Not only would such devastating education cuts create a political firestorm if Mastriano’s plan was enacted, there is no question other vital human and healthcare services. like Medicaid, safety net, and home care programs would be slashed to make up for the ensuing funding crisis.
According to Spotlight PA’s analysis on Medicaid, Doug Mastriano backs work requirements that limit access to Medicaid.
Mastriano’s campaign website doesn’t mention Medicaid expansion or specific changes to the program, and his campaign didn’t respond to questions from Spotlight PA about the issue. Mastriano co-sponsored a 2019 state Senate bill that would create a path to add work, education, or job search requirements for many adults in the program. (Wolf vetoed a similar measure in 2017, and the 2019 legislation went nowhere.)
The next Governor will have a significant issue, or potential crisis, to manage coming out of the COVID pandemic according to Spotlight:
The next governor will also have great power over a major Medicaid change.
As part of the federal government’s coronavirus public health emergency, states have received extra federal money in exchange for not removing people from Medicaid coverage unless they died, moved out of state, or asked to be disenrolled. Participants do not lose coverage, for instance, if their incomes exceed the usual limits.
When the public health emergency ends — which could occur in early 2023 — states must begin removing participants from the program if they are no longer eligible. That means hundreds of thousands of people in Pennsylvania are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage.
But the federal government urges states to take about a year to determine who is still eligible for the program and who needs to be removed.
The Wolf administration says it has identified about 525,000 people who have remained enrolled in the program despite not meeting the normal eligibility criteria. Plus, there are about 314,000 cases in which people have not completed the mandatory, annual renewal process, so it’s not clear if they will remain eligible…
Mastriano’s campaign didn’t provide any responses to Spotlight PA’s Medicaid questions.
Mastriano boasted about his plans to gut the state’s budget by eliminating property taxes in an op-ed he posted on his senate website:
We also must look at getting our current spending under control. I believe that a thorough review of all 33 state government agencies will reveal significant waste and redundancy. Trimming the fat off these agencies will pay dividends for Pennsylvania in the long run, reduce the cost of our state government, and slash burdensome regulations.
Lastly, Doug Mastriano wants to destroy our home care union that’s overwhelmingly comprised of women and people of color by pushing “Right to Work” laws. As The Keystone noted:
Mastriano, the GOP candidate for governor, is a longtime supporter of controversial Right to Work legislation, which is designed to weaken unions and diminish wages and benefits for working families.
As is typical in most forms of dark money legislation, Right to Work makes a false appeal to choice, telling workers that they should have the choice to receive the benefits of union protection without actually joining a union or paying even partial union dues. But the “choice” is not the goal. The goal is simple: divide and then eventually destroy unions, and take away workers’ rights to collectively bargain.
Mastriano vowed his strong support for “Right to Work” laws when he spoke at a Republican candidates forum for Governor at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference at the Penn Harris Hotel on April 1, 2022 – which was carried live on Facebook.
Doug Mastriano wants Pennsylvania to become a “Right to Work” if he becomes Governor