To the Editor,
"Just about two years ago, Allegany County Chairman W. Brooke Harris and Legislator Janice Burdick vocally opposed Governor Hochul’s attempt to withhold federal Medicaid funding from counties, citing the devastating impact on local taxpayers."“It’s not the State’s money,” Harris
said, condemning the move as one of the most fiscally damaging proposals in
recent years. Burdick, too, urged residents to contact their elected officials
to stop this costly measure. Their outrage was clear, their message direct:
Medicaid cuts that shift costs onto counties and residents are unacceptable.
And yet, now we
hear nothing. Not a word from Harris or Burdick as Congressman Nick Langworthy
throws his support behind a federal plan to slash Medicaid and Medicare by $800
billion—a cut that would not just strain county budgets but jeopardize healthcare
access for thousands of local families and cripple healthcare facilities and
nursing homes. Where is the call to action? Where is the insistence that “it’s
not the federal government’s money”?
The silence is
telling. When state officials proposed shifting costs to counties, our
legislators stood up. But when a member of their own party supports gutting
healthcare programs that protect our seniors, working families, and the most
vulnerable among us, they have nothing to say. If Harris and Burdick were
sincere in their opposition to budget proposals that harm Allegany County
taxpayers, they should be just as vocal in condemning Langworthy’s plan.
Anything less is pure hypocrisy.
The people of
Allegany County deserve leaders who will defend them—not just when it’s
politically convenient, but when it truly matters.
In Solidarity,
Jackie Wilson
Allegany County
Democratic Committee, Secretary
Alfred-2 Representative
