Opinion: I’m disabled. I’m terrified about what Medicaid cuts could mean for my life
Medicaid cuts could force disabled people out of the public sphere and into nursing homes. People like me.
In early January, I received a letter in the mail from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. The letter informed me that I had been approved for Medicaid-funded Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), a form of long-term care. It had been five months since I’d applied to the program, after being discharged from the hospital in August 2024 as a new full-time wheelchair user.
Receiving HCBS meant, among other things, I now had care workers who could help physically lift me and my wheelchair up the 20 stairs to my inaccessible apartment, so that I would be able to occasionally leave my home. It also meant I no longer had to worry about how I would get food, shower safely, or take care of the trash piling up by my front door.
