"An assistant paid for with taxpayer dollars makes sure he's safe on the bus ride to and from school. Each month, he receives a $957 disability check that helps to cover his and his family's living expenses. Still learning to speak on his own, he uses a Proloquo speech app on an iPad provided by his school to tell his family when he's hungry, needs to use the restroom or wants to play with his favorite toys."
"With hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cuts to Medicaid and food aid kicking in this fall thanks to the passage of the Republican-backed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" - on top of earlier cuts imposed by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency - a host of federally funded healthcare and nutrition programs that serve low-income Americans will be scaled back, revamped with expanded work requirements and other restrictions or canceled altogether if individual states can't find alternate funding sources."
Elijah Maldonado, born prematurely and diagnosed with cerebral palsy, depends on Medicaid-funded therapies, assistive devices, school-provided communication technology, a caregiver paid by public funds, and a monthly $957 disability check. Upcoming federal budget changes will reduce Medicaid funding by about $1 trillion over 10 years and implement cuts to food aid and other programs. The measures include expanded work requirements and other restrictions, and programs may be canceled if states cannot replace lost federal funding. Those changes threaten access to therapies, transportation assistance, equipment, income supports, and essential services for low-income families.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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