As Wyoming faith leaders, we are deeply concerned by potential cuts to federal funding for Medicaid. The program provides health care coverage to tens of thousands of our low-income Wyoming neighbors who are disabled, children, pregnant, seniors or otherwise unable to access medical services. This program is essential.

We call on our congressional delegation representing us in Washington, D.C., to remember the Christian gospel message from Matthew 25:36 as they consider these cuts: “I was sick, and you took care of me.” Jesus identifies care for the sick as an act of faithfulness. Ensuring access to health care is not just policy, but a way of living out Christ’s call to love and serve.

The U.S. House and Senate have both recently passed a budget resolution that could require taking away Medicaid health coverage from millions of Americans, including our Wyoming neighbors. Unfortunately, all three of our delegation’s members — Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, and Rep. Hageman — voted for the budget framework.

Lawmakers must weigh the harm and benefits when making decisions like this and understand their true and real impacts on the lives of God’s children.

Medicaid specifically helps those who need it most: Wyoming has some of the strictest requirements in the nation for enrolling in our Medicaid health insurance program. A person must not only be poor to qualify. They must also have some other condition, such as blindness or a disability, or be pregnant, a child or a senior citizen.

There are no “able-bodied adults” receiving Wyoming Medicaid, aside perhaps from the low-income new mothers who can qualify for a single year of coverage after giving birth. This is a program that serves people who truly need assistance and who have no other option for accessing health care.

Still, more than 60,000 Wyoming residents depend on Medicaid for their access to health care. The program covers more than 70% of nursing home stays for our elderly residents, and a third of Wyoming births. It covers care for people with severe disabilities and new mothers who face postpartum health complications and depression.

Waiver services, for example, provide essential services, such as group homes and adult caregivers, to adults with severe intellectual and/or physical disabilities who cannot live independently. Withdrawal of community-based services would require nursing home placement, a much more costly option.

Medicaid helps keep our most vulnerable people healthy in Wyoming, but Congress is poised to dramatically cut its funding this month to pay for tax breaks that will primarily benefit the richest people and corporations in America. This would put our neighbors, our communities and even our hospitals in Wyoming at serious risk.

We, faith leaders in Wyoming, call upon our members of Congress — Barrasso, Lummis and Hageman — to vote against current proposals to dramatically cut funding for Medicaid. Doing so would cause serious harm to people in our state, whose only ability to access health care they desperately need comes from the health insurance program.

We’re reminded in 1 Corinthians 12:12 that “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

Wyoming is one body and our lawmakers must do what they can to keep that body well.

Signatories:

Rev. Jordan Bishop, Trinity Episcopal Church, Lander

Rev. Jessica Boyce, Whole Soul, Casper

Rev. Loren A. Boyce, First United Methodist Church, Casper

Rev. Mark Calhoun, United Methodist Church Wyoming District Superintendent, Lander

Rev. Annemarie Delgado, Church of the Good Shepherd, Sundance

Rev. Camie Dewey, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Casper

Rev. Mary Erickson, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Jackson

Rev. Mike Eisenman, Our Saviour’s Lutheran, Casper

Rev. Mike Evers, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Sheridan

Rev. Canon Bobbe Fitzhugh, Canon for Mission, Outreach and Evangelism, Douglas

Rev. Janita Krayniak, United Methodist Church, Powell

Rev. Dee Lundberg, United Church of Christ, retired, Casper

Rev. Warren Murphy, Episcopal Church, retired, Cody

Rev. Megan Nickles, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Powell

Rev. Dan O’Dell, United Methodist Church, Casper

Rev. Dr. Sally Palmer, United Church of Christ, retired, Laramie

Rev. Katherine Saxbury, Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church, Casper

Rev. Lynn Williamson, Presbyterian Church, retired, Casper

Debbie Bovee, United Church of Christ Member, Casper

Mariah Bovee, United Church of Christ Member, Casper

Katrina Bradley, Bahai Community Member, Laramie

Charlie Powell, United Church of Christ Member, Casper

Loraine Powell, United Church of Christ Member, Casper

Scott Sissman, Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church Member, Casper

Sandy Thiel, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Sheridan