The Life Care Center of Wilbraham Senior Executive Director Dennis Lopata listens while U.S. Rep. Richard Neal speaks about the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid.
Reminder Publishing photo by Sarah Heinonen
WILBRAHAM — To honor the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal visited the residents at Life Care Center of Wilbraham, a rehabilitation and skilled nursing facility on Boston Road.
The Springfield Democrat quoted Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who famously said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare Act, which amended the Social Security Act of 1935 and provided health insurance to those over age 65.
Originally, Medicare included only the provisions known today as Part A and Part B, which covered inpatient care and outpatient care, respectively. Since then, it has been expanded to include prescription drug coverage. Neal said he favored expanding Medicare further to cover vision, dental and audiological care. “And America can afford this,” he said.
The amendments that created Medicare also produced Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income individuals, which Neal described as the first step toward universal healthcare. He said 52 cents of every Medicaid dollar is spent on long-term care, adding that Life Care Center of Wilbraham is the “best snapshot of what this really means.
Neal praised Senior Executive Director Dennis Lopata for the work done at the 123-bed facility, which currently provides care to 113 people. “Medicaid is a strong part of that conversation,” Lopata said.
President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress earlier this month, made cuts to Medicaid that will go into effect after the 2026 midterm elections. Massachusetts’s Medicaid program is MassHealth. According to a press release from Gov. Maura Healey’s office, 250,000 people in the state are expected to lose coverage due to the loss of $1.75 billion in federal funds.
“It’s going to affect people like the client base here, it’s going to affect our hospitals and certainly going to affect a lot of patients,” Neal said. “If you are trying to send children to college and simultaneously trying to care for an aging parent, it doesn’t work. The economics just don’t work.”
Lopata said it is not yet clear what the financial impact will be for Life Care Center of Wilbraham, but he said 55% of the people there are on Medicaid. “We need that,” Lopata said. “We need to be able to provide the services.” He said that despite Medicaid being “somewhat underfunded at times,” there is a “true need” among the people they serve. He thanked Neal for supporting the Life Care Center of Wilbraham.
“If [Democrats] win next year [in the midterm elections], which seems likely, I intend to offer legislation to reverse all of those cuts right away,” Neal said. “A trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years? It can’t be sustained. And at the same time, if you look at who gets what in the distribution bill, we all should be upset. I think we need to continue to remind people of what this means in terms of implementation. These are some pretty harsh cuts.”
He continued, “We all grew up with that notion, but for certain events, we could be in a certain circumstance. And I think that’s what you do, you provide the safety net here.” He said, “I don’t know how America can live without Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”
Neal said Democrats in the U.S. House plan to lay out a plan that would expand Social Security benefits and “propose how to pay for it.” He said the average Social Security recipient receives $24,000 annually. “People are not getting rich on Social Security,” he said.
Neal shared a video of Johnson signing the Medicare Act in President Harry Truman’s living room. He explained that Truman had first proposed a national healthcare fund in 1945.
“I’m so impressed with what we’ve done in the big moments,” Neal said, listing as such moments the New Deal, the Wilderness Act and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, from which Congress recently approved a request by Trump to claw back two years of funding.
