NJ Nurse Urges Congress to Reject Medicaid Cuts Threatening Patients

New Jersey Nurse Challenges Congress Over Medicaid Funding Cuts

At the heart of a national debate on healthcare funding, Yvonne Breidenbach, a dedicated licensed practical nurse, raises her voice for those who cannot. Working at the Hunterdon Developmental Center in Clinton, New Jersey, Breidenbach views her patients, individuals with developmental disabilities, as her extended family.

For 17 years, Breidenbach has served those she considers "like my children, like my brothers and sisters," yet now finds herself worried about their futures. Looming cuts to Medicaid, embedded in a congressional bill, threaten the funding essential to the Hunterdon Center.

A member of Local 2220 (AFSCME New Jersey), Breidenbach is all too familiar with the challenges of staffing and resource limitations. Direct care workers, whom she calls “living angels,” already juggle the demands of double shifts. Reduced funding could severely impact the quality of life for her patients.

"A lot of them will die," she warns.

Her concerns are directed toward her congressman, Thomas Kean Jr., who backed the bill in the House. Breidenbach questions his priorities, asking, “Of all the things that can be cut, why is it that all the focus is going toward the vulnerable population? Is it because they cannot talk for themselves? Because they cannot answer back?”

Breidenbach criticizes the motivations behind the bill, suggesting that anti-union lawmakers aim to slash Medicaid to finance tax cuts for the wealthy. "The rich already have enough money to live for generations," she asserts, adding that for her patients, the center’s care "is the only thing they have."

She emphasizes that her advocacy transcends political lines, stating, “It has nothing to do with a political party. It has to do with empathy.” As the bill, altered in the Senate and possibly more detrimental, returns to the House, she urges lawmakers, including those who previously supported it, to reconsider their stance.

To oppose the bill, citizens are encouraged to text GO to 237263 and join the effort to Get Organized.