Murphy: "Trying to do my small part to help build a national opposition movement against what's happening." “The old tools are still the new tools,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy told a room of Fair Haven healthcare providers and advocates worried about potential Republican-led cuts to Medicaid. “ As much as politics has changed, it is still turnout and protest and volume that makes a difference.”Murphy offered that political advice during a Friday morning meetup at Fair Haven Community Health Care.Connecticut’s junior U.S. senator stopped by the Grand Avenue healthcare hub at the start of a planned nationwide tour during the upcoming two-week break for Congress. He said he hopes to make the case directly to the American people about just how harmful all manner of federal cuts pushed by the Trump administration are — thereby proving to the Republican trifecta in Washington how unpopular its program will be. Murphy has emerged in the past few months as one of the Democratic Party’s sharpest critics of the Trump administration. He’s used viral social media posts and national-news interviews to argue that the Trump administration is destroying democracy to benefit the rich. He also raised $8 million over the past three months — even though he’s five years out from the end of his current term in the Senate.“We all feel this despair and hopelessness” given the current national political context, Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller said to Murphy on Friday. And ​“we feel really proud to see you standing up” to the Trump administration. ​“How can we back you up?”In a second-floor meeting at the federally qualified health center’s 374 Grand Ave. headquarters on Friday, Murphy spoke with Fair Haven Health CEO Suzanne Lagarde, city Health Director Maritza Bond, Alders Miller and Caroline Tanbee Smith, and other Fair Haven Health staffers about funding-cut threats posed by President Donald Trump’s executive orders and a budget resolution newly passed by the Republican-led House and Senate.In particular, Lagarde described to Murphy different scenarios the health center has mapped out for just how many of their patients would be hit by cuts to Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor.Fair Haven Health currently treats 22,187 patients enrolled in various Medicaid segments, known in Connecticut as Husky A, B, C, and D. If Congress reduces the federal match from 90 percent to 50 percent for Husky D — which represents Medicaid’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare — Fair Haven Health could see more than 1,000 patients hit. If Congress reduces the federal match minimum for Husky A, B, and C from 50 percent to 25.8 percent, that could strip coverage from another nearly 8,000.These scenarios are still hypothetical. But, because the newly passed budget resolution instructs the House committee that oversees Medicaid to find $880 billion in cuts, they could become very real soon.“If this all comes to pass, or if any of these big ticket items come to pass,” Lagarde said, ​“it’s truly existential threats.”The reality is, Murphy responded, ​“they have not decided any of this. Our mission is to make this so unbelievably unpopular in the country that they shelve the entire idea.”He cited the successful ​“national resistance” to the attempted repeal of Obamacare in 2017, thanks to a few Republicans who voted with Democrats in Congress.Something similar needs to happen now. Republicans claim that these hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts are designed to address ​“waste, inefficiency, abuse,” Murphy said. ​“Bullshit. There’s no way to cut that amount of money” without many people losing their healthcare. ​“We’ve got to raise that specter for folks.”And then there’s the ​“why”: these program cuts will ultimate fund a massive tax cut that will disproportionately benefit the wealthy.So. What to do about it? “I’m traveling the country to talk about the stakes here,” Murphy said, as he’s ​“trying to do my small part to help build a national opposition movement against what’s happening.”And how exactly can people in New Haven help Murphy on that mission at the local level? Alder Miller and Health Director Bond asked.Murphy pointed to this month’s nationwide ​“Hands Off” protests as successfully drawing attention, in all 50 states, to mass popular discontent with Trump administration policies.“We’re going to do everything we can to throw sand in the gears,” he added. And ​“we only have to convince a small number” of Republicans — three in the House, four in the Senate — to say ​“no” to whatever spending bill the Republican majorities in both chambers wind up proposing. And to win that argument, to build that grassroots movement, ​“We just have to be vocal.”Alder Mill and Fair Haven Health CEO Suzanne Lagarde. Fair Haven Health Chief Advancement Officer Maggie Moffett: "Who in his party is standing up? Where's Bill Cassidy?" Health Director Bond: "How can we at the local level support you?" ...read more read less