Disabled People "Will Die" as GOP Medicaid Cuts Go into Effect, Warns Disability Rights Leader

[Passages]

July 30, 2025

People with disabilities are among those most heavily impacted by Trump’s cuts to Medicaid. “I know so many people like me, disabled adults living and thriving now, who were able to get to adulthood because Medicaid existed,” says Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. We feature additional testimonies from disabled members of the advocacy group Caring Across Generations, and speak to Town, who says she fears “so many kids [will] not get a chance to make it to adulthood,” while countless adults “will not be able to live into old age because of these cuts.”

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Among the millions who will be impacted by Medicaid cuts are people with disabilities and their families and communities. In addition today being the 60th anniversary of Medicaid, last week was the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA. This is President George H.W. Bush, speaking, July 26th, 1990.

PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: This act is powerful in its simplicity. It will ensure that people with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for which they have worked so long and so hard — independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives, the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic of the American mainstream. And legally, it will provide our disabled community with a powerful expansion of protections and then basic civil rights. … I now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disability Act and say, let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. God bless you all.

AMY GOODMAN: “Let the shameful wall of exclusion come tumbling down,” said President George H.W. Bush. Following its passage, Justin Dart, known as one of the fathers of the ADA, called it, quote, “the world’s first declaration of equality for people with disabilities by any nation,” unquote. Justin Dart founded the American Association of People with Disabilities, or AAPD.
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/30/maria_town