WASHINGTON — Brittney Walsh of Louisville suffered from addiction throughout her life, including after the birth of her daughter, she said.
“If you would have told me when I was giving birth to my daughter in 2010 that I would have been addicted to opioids, I would have looked at you and told you, you were lying, because that was the happiest moment of my life,” she said.
Walsh has now been in recovery for 20 months and she is urging Congress not to make cuts to Medicaid, the insurance program that she credits with helping her get to this point.
“I work in drug and alcohol treatment now today, and I get people to their next level of care so that they’re not on the streets, and I have commercial insurance because I’m employable today, because I have learned how to live life on life’s terms,” Walsh said.
House Republicans’ budget plan calls for slashing $880 billion over 10 years in spending overseen by the committee with jurisdiction for Medicaid, but President Donald Trump has said the program is not on the chopping block.
Brittany Morris helps to connect people to treatment services through the organization VOCAL-KY.
Medicaid helped her get into recovery when she discovered she was pregnant, and while she’s now on insurance through work, some of her prior jobs didn’t offer it, she said.
“If it wasn’t for Medicaid … I probably wouldn’t be here,” Morris said. “My daughter probably would have a mother that was still out there using.”
A state report shows 1,984 people died from an overdose in Kentucky in 2023, down nearly 10% from the year before.
Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, said Medicaid cuts would worsen Kentucky’s overdose crisis.
“We had a Medicaid roundtable where providers came, who were saying, ‘Look, if these cuts to Medicaid go through and the people who need treatment can’t get it because they aren’t covered by Medicaid, by their health insurance anymore, it’s going to have disastrous consequences,’” McGarvey said.
An analysis released earlier this month by the non-partisan congressional budget office showed that if cuts to Medicaid and to two other programs ruled off limits by Republicans are taken off the table, Republicans could not reach their cost-cutting target.
