On Monday, July 27, several dozen Staten Islanders stood on Victory Boulevard in Castleton Corners with party hats, noisemakers, and cupcakes. They were throwing a birthday party for Medicare and Medicaid, which turned 61 this month.
They held it directly across from Nicole Malliotakis' district office. That's not a coincidence — it's a routine. These are the weekly "Malliotakis Mondays," organized by a coalition of local groups, and they have been going on for months.
The Staten Island Advance asked Malliotakis about the weekly demonstrations and about the organizers' continued calls for a town hall. Her office did not return the questions.
Why they're out there
The rally was called "Celebrate, Defend, Improve and Expand 61 Years of Medicare and Medicaid," hosted by NY-11 for Health Care and co-sponsored by the Staten Island Action Coalition, Peace Action of Staten Island, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, and Staten Island for Change.
For an hour, people told their own stories. One speaker described growing up in a family that leaned on Medicaid after both parents got chronically ill:
"If it wasn't for Medicaid, we would have been forced to choose between groceries, the mortgage or my father's cancer treatments."
Another attendee talked about caring for her adult daughter with disabilities, and the difficulty of dealing with the Social Security system after staffing cuts and administrative changes. Her daughter recently lost Medicaid eligibility and is now struggling to cover basic living costs even with Supplemental Security Income.
The crowd chanted: "That's why we're in this fight. Health care is a human right."
The numbers behind the party hats
This isn't a symbolic protest about a hypothetical. Malliotakis voted for Trump's budget bill, and the nonpartisan Joint Economic Committee estimates the health care cuts in it will cost nearly 37,000 people in her district their health insurance.
Her Staten Island and Brooklyn district is not a wealthy one. More than 43,000 households there — about one in six — rely on SNAP to afford groceries. She voted for the largest cut to SNAP in history too.
Chris Johnson of the Staten Island Action Coalition made the point that the damage is still arriving:
"As these impacts from the cuts start to affect people's daily lives, especially if there are children involved, you're really going to start to see an outcry."
He added: "Our purpose is to educate, activate and mobilize. We're going to be here every Monday, and we're not stopping."
The empty chair
The town hall question is the one Malliotakis keeps not answering.
When constituents organized a town hall in the district and formally invited her, she didn't show up. They left an empty chair where she was supposed to sit.
That's the pattern, and this week's non-response to the Advance is the same pattern in miniature. Her constituents have now made it as easy as it can possibly get: they come to her office. On a schedule. Every week. They bring cupcakes.
She still won't come out and take the questions.
What she owes them
There's a version of this where a member of Congress disagrees with the protesters and says so. Malliotakis could walk across Victory Boulevard and argue that the cuts were necessary, that the coverage estimates are wrong, that her constituents will be fine. That would be a real position, and voters could judge it.
Instead there's silence — and 37,000 people in her district heading toward losing their health insurance because of a vote she cast.
Medicare and Medicaid turned 61 this week. Some of the people who came to sing "Happy Birthday" on a sidewalk in Castleton Corners are about to lose the coverage they were celebrating. We deserve better.
Source
This post is based on reporting by the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com: Staten Islanders protest Malliotakis over Medicare, Medicaid funding and immigration spending by Scott R. Axelrod.
