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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(126,060 posts)
Sat Jul 19, 2025, 01:21 PM Saturday

They don't need Medicaid. But their kids do.

Stacy Staggs's 11-year-old daughter will never eat or breathe on her own.

Five times a day, Staggs or a nurse feeds her daughter, Emma Staggs, doctor-prescribed formula through a feeding tube at home. The formula comes at $25 per bottle, amounting to $125 per day.

The formula is covered through Medicaid, a program jointly funded by the federal government and states, which faces severe cuts through President Donald Trump's Republican-backed and recently passed reconciliation package. The law directly impacts nondisabled adults who must get a job or qualify for an exemption in order to maintain Medicaid coverage. But advocates are worried about how vulnerable populations might be harmed as states manage funding shortfalls due to other provisions in the law.

Emma Staggs has bilateral vocal cord paralysis that prohibits her from swallowing or sounding out words, chronic lung disease, developmental delays and other daily health struggles. She survived the first months of her life in the intensive care unit after she was born at 1 pound, 9 ounces. In addition to the formula she needs to survive, Medicaid covers a pulse oximeter, oxygen concentrator, oxygen tanks for travel and a heap of other medical equipment in her North Carolina bedroom.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dont-medicaid-kids-090106384.html

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