{"id":36905,"date":"2025-07-04T02:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T02:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/36905\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T02:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T02:28:11","slug":"melania-trump-visits-dc-childrens-hospital-as-gop-passes-big-beautiful-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/36905\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump Visits DC Children’s Hospital As GOP Passes ‘Big Beautiful Bill’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s dystopia, at the same time Republicans<\/a> passed legislation to<\/a> cut nearly $1 trillion in funding from Medicaid<\/a> \u2014 a health care program that allows low-income and disabled children and adults to get the health care they need \u2014 first lady Melania Trump<\/a> was photographed visiting Children\u2019s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., to spend time with sick kids, according to USA Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On a day parents, caretakers, doctors and nurses worried more than ever about the future of health care coverage, she visited a hospital that cares for babies and children through Medicaid<\/a> (among other types of health insurance). <\/p>\n

At Children\u2019s National, the first lady talked with the kids, brought gifts, did Fourth of July crafts with them and decorated the hospital garden.<\/p>\n

On any other day, this visit would be… fine, but the timing is questionable at best \u2014 and cruel at worst \u2014 as the so-called Big Beautiful Bill which is expected to take away health care coverage from upwards of 12 million people<\/a>, makes its way to President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s desk for him to sign into law.<\/p>\n

According to reporting from The 19th<\/a>, $1 trillion dollars will be cut from Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program as part of the bill.<\/p>\n

While each program has different eligibility requirements and coverage areas, they generally cover health care costs for low-income adults and children, disabled adults and children, and others with limited resources.<\/p>\n

Medicaid is a literal lifeline for millions of kids. Roughly 37 million children<\/a> currently get their health care through Medicaid or CHIP, and Medicaid is \u201cthe single largest healthcare insurer for children,\u201d the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia states on its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Medicaid and CHIP cover preventive health care<\/a> for babies and kids so they can stay well and receive vaccinations, physicals and routine dental care<\/a>. These health care programs are also there to cover costs when something goes wrong (1 in 3 children<\/a> with cancer are covered by Medicaid).<\/p>\n

Medicaid also covers health care for 99% of children in foster care<\/a> and provides health insurance for 80% of children in poverty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Melania<\/p>\n

Andrew Harnik via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Melania Trump visited Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., as Republicans slashed Medicaid funding.<\/p>\n

Beyond taking away Medicaid from millions, the health care cuts in the \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d are expected to impact individual hospitals \u2014 particularly in rural areas<\/a> \u2014 that now may face closures as they deal with financial issues as a result of the loss of Medicaid funding. So, where will the kids who need care in those areas go, whether they\u2019re on Medicaid or not?<\/p>\n

While work requirements for nondisabled adults are at the center of the Medicaid changes, lots of people are worried<\/a> about what the funding cuts mean for the future of their children\u2019s health<\/a>. And how could they not?<\/p>\n

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Budget cuts to health care programs that are in place to keep children and their families healthy certainly aren\u2019t going to \u201cMake America Healthy Again,\u201d the purported goal of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

And creating a distraction, by way of a hospital visit, from 1 trillion dollars of health care cuts also isn\u2019t going to \u201cMake America Healthy Again.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019d be nice to think that the first lady\u2019s visit to Children\u2019s National Hospital wasn\u2019t intentionally cruel, especially as millions of Americans worry about paying for their future doctor\u2019s visits. (Hey, maybe, like her husband<\/a>, she didn\u2019t realize there were Medicaid cuts in the bill.) But with a track record of wearing a jacket<\/a> imprinted with \u201cI really don\u2019t care, do u?\u201d it\u2019s hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In today\u2019s dystopia, at the same time Republicans passed legislation to cut nearly $1 trillion in funding from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,3170,13754,80,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-36905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-medicaid","12":"tag-melania-trump","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114792608821907540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}