LYNN – Protestors gathered at Lynn Common Wednesday afternoon for a Wednesday Walkout event to vocalize the importance of Medicaid and their frustrations with President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Based on the plenty of cars honking as they drove past, the protest was well-received by onlookers.
Mark Larsen of East Boston spoke on the purpose of Wednesday Walkouts, as they were started by his daughter Hannah, a physician.
“The goal is to remind people of the value of Medicaid in Massachusetts and many other states,” he said. “Massachusetts, with MassHealth, is in a somewhat better position than other states, but the cutbacks that have been passed by the House and the Senate are going to cause serious harm in many states, and many of those states voted for the president.”
He continued, “Republicans have been talking about (how), ‘We’re not cutting benefits.’ What they are doing is they’re making it much more difficult. I think something like two-thirds of people who are getting Medicaid who can work are working already, so that’s not as big a problem as they claim.”
Larsen said his fears stem from people not seeking out the medical care they need and instead winding up in an emergency room for much more severe issues.
“The idea here is to let people know that this is an issue and that we’ve got to fight for it and we’ve got to continue to argue and make the point of how important health care is in America,” Larsen said. “It’s a lot of children. If you don’t have healthy children, you’re not going to have healthy adults. It’s a lot of working families. It used to be that some of the major discount chains didn’t pay their employees enough and didn’t provide healthcare, so where did they get their health care? Medicaid.”
He added that centering the Medicaid conversations around immigrants who receive it is disingenuous.
“The other (argument) is that illegal immigrants are getting Medicaid. Well, that’s probably a very small number of them, because you can’t get Medicaid unless you have a Green Card. Unless you have a fake Green Card, but otherwise, if you’re working, you pay your taxes, hopefully, you’re paying into the system, and you don’t get any benefits,” Larsen said.
He continued, “Those are the kinds of things that we’re trying to highlight: how it’s good for working families, how it’s good for mental health, for homeless individuals, for whatever reason they’re in that situation, due to addiction or other tragedies they’ve had in their lives, they also need access to the care to hopefully get them better.”
Regarding the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which just passed the Senate with a narrow vote of 51-50, Larsen said, “I think the republicans are making a terrible, dangerous, and tragic mistake.
“You’re going to deprive millions of people of health care. How else can you feel but terrible about that? It’s a tragedy, and quite frankly, in the richest nation in the world, it is in fact a disgrace,” Larsen said. “We should be able to provide health care for everyone in this country.”
He continued, “I think the agenda is just overwhelmingly bad for America. It’s sad that we’re out here. It’s sad that we have to make these arguments. There are other things I’d like to do with my retirement, but I think that in time, Thom Tillis, one republican senator with some backbone, will be proven correct: that these other senators are going to harm their constituents. We’ll just see what happens.”
