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Protestors rally against Medicare and Medicaid cuts outside House Rep. Malliotakis’ Bay Ridge office

BAY RIDGE — A coalition of progressive groups and unions, including Indivisible Brooklyn, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Rise and Resist’s “Metro New York Health Care for All” chapter, Citizen Action of New York, and the Center for Popular Democracy joined forces in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on Saturday, March 22, protesting Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis’ vote for a budget resolution that would drastically cut health care coverage and give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

On Feb. 25, the House passed a Republican budget resolution calling for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires while cutting $2 trillion from vital federal programs, including $230 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and $800 billion from Medicare and Medicaid.

Low-income and disabled Americans on Medicaid, Medicare, Child Health Plus, Essential Plan, or the Affordable Care Act would lose or have restricted access to public health care resources. In Malliotakis’ district, the 11th Congressional District, which includes Bay Ridge, nearly a third of her constituents would be impacted by the cuts. 

The protest kicked off with a rally on the corner of 4th Avenue and Senator Street across from NYU Langone Ambulatory Care Center on 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge before around two hundred protestors took to the streets and marched to House Rep’s office at 7716 3rd Avenue.

Malliotakis’ office released the following statement: “Saturday’s protest only instills fear to score political points. Nothing in the budget resolution cuts health care, and it does not even mention the words Medicare or Medicaid. Our efforts are focused on eliminating fraud, abuse and bloated bureaucracy to administer programs more efficiently to reduce our $37 trillion debt and put us on a path to fiscal responsibility so our country and these programs don’t go bankrupt. Again, Saturday’s protest only instills fear to score political points.”

Retired 1999 SEIU member Dawn Haas told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle cutting Medicare and Medicaid would be a disaster for the country. 

With over 450,000 members, including retirees, the 1999 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is the nation’s largest health care union in the country. Its members include nurses, nurse aides, techs, lab workers, clerks, housekeepers, dietary workers, transporters, pharmacists, and social workers. 

Cuts to Medicaid and Medicare would result in cutting services for the patients and impact thousands of retired 1999 SEIU members like Haas. 

“We have a lot of retirees who are on [a] fixed income, so they depend on all the benefits that they’re getting from the government, and these are the benefits that are cut and downsized,” Haas explained.

Haas explained that working in health care wasn’t easy, and many members sacrificed family time for their jobs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 1999 SEIU union members were on the frontline, risking their lives while saving patients. 

“A lot of members died. It’s a lot of hurt, and it’s a lot of anger. We are going to be in the streets, 24/7 [and] 12 months of the year until something gives,” Haas vowed.

Chris McCreight, Democratic District Leader for Bay Ridge, joined the rally and march because he, like many of Malliotakis’ constituents, says he was “pissed off.”

“The fact that Republicans like Nicole Malliotakis are trying to take away people’s health care, trying to take away Medicaid, Social Security’s coming up, people are just fed up. I don’t think people are gonna take this one sitting down,” said McCreight, urging the congresswoman to vote in her constituent’s best interest.

“I have little faith that that’s going to happen, as she’s continually voted against her constituents ever since she got into office, including voting against certifying the election results in 2021,” McCreight explained. “But everybody has an awakening, and maybe this will be her awakening, and maybe she’ll start voting with her constituents now.”

At the rally outside Malliotakis’ office, a few protestors shared personal stories before the group staged a die-in on the sidewalk while holding up tombstone-like signs with messages such as “Died From Medicaid Cuts” or “DOGE Took My Medicaid.” 

Kate Barnhart, a Bay Ridge resident, shared her mom’s story. Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2009, many self-employed Americans, like Barnhart’s mother, a freelance writer, couldn’t afford private insurance. One day, her mother felt a lump in her breast, and while she knew about her family’s history of breast cancer — her grandmother and cousins had died of breast cancer — she didn’t seek medical attention for years because she didn’t want to bankrupt the family. Barnhart recalled coming home from college one year, and she saw that her mother’s chest was deformed, discolored, and swollen and that her mother could barely breathe. 

“My mother died at 56 years old because she did not have health insurance,” Barnhart said. “The ACA was created to stop that from happening. This will start happening again. The ACA is under attack. Medicaid is under attack. Medicare is under attack. Child health is under attack.”

Irene (last name withheld) shared that her 80-year-old mother suffers from various ailments, including arthritis in both hips. This year, her mother’s rent increased by $250, and she pays nearly $3,000 in rent every month. Irene fears that if Medicare and Medicaid are cut, her mother will have to make choices between her health or keeping a roof over her head. 

“What are those choices gonna be? Food, rent, [and] having her hearing aid checked? Is she going to need help to walk after she has her hips replaced?” Irene asked. “This is what keeps me up at night, and these are the questions that Malliotakis makes worse and won’t answer.” 

NYC Council Member and candidate for NYC Comptroller Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), whose district includes Bay Ridge, also attended the rally outside Malliotakis’ office 

Brannan told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that anyone surprised that Nicole Malliotakis chose tax cuts for billionaires over Medicare for New York City seniors hadn’t paid attention. 

“Since being elected, Nicole [Malliotakis] has reliably voted against everything we believe in,” Brannan said. “This isn’t imaginary culture war nonsense. This is real. This is life and death. People are terrified. But Nicole doesn’t care. At a time when she should be standing up for us, she is complicit. It’s disgusting, and voters will not forget this moment.”