Local opinion: I am disabled, not disposable: Medicaid cuts are a death sentence

Andy Biggs and Karrin Taylor Robson have never seen me. Not when I was a healthy, working Tucsonan. Not when multiple sclerosis began attacking my central nervous system four years ago. And certainly not now, as they champion the largest Medicaid cut in modern history — a cut that will literally kill people like me.

I am alive today because of Medicaid. Appointment after appointment, from MRIs to spinal taps to blood work, I’ve been properly diagnosed and stabilized thanks to healthcare coverage that Biggs and Taylor Robson want to slash. Without it, I would be uninsured, bankrupt, or dead. There is no alternative for Arizonans like me living with debilitating chronic illness.

They don’t see that reality. They see numbers on a spreadsheet that they can use to help give their billionaire friends a tax break, not the Tucsonan whose energy hit rock bottom, whose speech deteriorated, whose body began failing him. They don’t see the man who was forced onto disability, living on a fixed income while fighting a disease that attacks his central nervous system every single day.

The distance between their world and mine is staggering. Biggs got lucky in a sweepstakes and won $10 million. Taylor Robson is a billionaire. I live on disability benefits. Most Americans can’t cover a $1,000 emergency bill. Neither of them would blink twice at a retroactive denial from insurance, while we would be bankrupt immediately.

I must receive regular Ocrevus infusions costing tens of thousands per dose. Taylor Robson has already spent millions on TV ads — more money than I’ll see in a lifetime. To her, that’s pocket change. Biggs won millions in dumb luck, then decided people like me aren’t worth the cost.

They have never faced the terror of losing health coverage or received a letter saying they’ve been dropped for earning thirty dollars too much in a month. For people like me, Medicaid determines whether we live with dignity in our homes or get overwhelmed by disease and confined to institutions.

They’re not just balancing lines on a ledger — the cuts they champion will inflict lasting harm on hundreds of thousands of Arizonans like myself. The idea that increasing paperwork will stop fraud? Insulting. I already navigate mountains of approvals daily, and it’s exhausting. My MRIs track disease progression. My Ocrevus infusions keep me alive. None of this is wasteful or fraudulent.

What Biggs and Taylor Robson are really supporting is a healthcare system that shuts the door on people with disabilities. They’re adding hurdles designed to make qualified Medicaid recipients give up, go uninsured, and die rather than fight through bureaucratic warfare.

By supporting this law, they are attacking real Arizonans — the disabled grandmother in my who has no family to help navigate insurance paperwork, the chronically ill father trying to work part-time while managing daily symptoms, the young woman whose autoimmune disease destroyed her career overnight.

When they announced support for this deeply partisan budget bill — the biggest Medicaid cut in modern history — they made their choice clear. They had an opportunity to stand up for Arizonans like me, and they betrayed us. They decided our lives aren’t worth the expense.

This budget law is nothing but cruel. They threw billions at tax breaks for the wealthy without blinking, but keeping Arizonans with disabilities alive? That’s suddenly too expensive. They know these cuts will force Arizona’s health system to slash services, gut coverage, and kick people off entirely. They know they’re sentencing people to death.

I am screaming internally, and all of us in the disability community are fighting to be seen. We’re tired of being invisible. We’re tired of being expendable in their political games.

To Andy Biggs and Karrin Taylor Robson, I want you to know that we exist, we vote, and we won’t forget. Neither will the thousands of Arizonans with disabilities, chronically ill families, and support groups across this state. We know who tried to erase us.

I will not be invisible anymore. None of us will.