Maine’s Medicaid expansion program, MaineCare, saved my life by covering gender-affirming care. I’m worried that Medicaid cuts proposed by the GOP-controlled Congress, as well as our state’s failure to fully fund MaineCare, could leave me and hundreds of thousands of others without access to health care.

I’m among the more than 400,000 adults and children — over a quarter of the population — in our state enrolled in Medicaid, and one of the 100,000 on MaineCare. GOP legislators at both the state and federal levels are putting our health care at risk.

I spent most of my adult life uninsured or underinsured after getting kicked off my parents’ health insurance in my 20s. I worked in the service industry, and like thousands of other Mainers, I didn’t have employer-paid health insurance, nor could I afford hundreds of dollars a month for a comprehensive health care plan through the marketplace.

Last year, I was able to have top surgery only because it was completely covered by Medicaid. President Trump has made the dehumanization of trans people a cornerstone of his administration, spewing hate from his bully pulpit, and seeking to erase us and push us to the margins of society. Protecting access to gender-affirming care is one of the key ways Maine can fight back against the evils of the Trump administration — but that’s not possible if we allow cuts to Medicaid.

Receiving gender-affirming care transformed my life and inspired me to go back to school to pursue a Master of Social Work degree. Once I get my license, I plan to work as a therapist specializing in care for trans and gender-diverse people here in Maine because there aren’t enough mental health experts in our state who are experienced and knowledgeable about trans mental health.

My partner and her 4-year-old daughter are also on MaineCare. My partner’s daughter was born very premature and was in the neonatal intensive care unit for over a month. She’s doing amazing now, but imagine how much harder things would have been if her hospital stay and ongoing treatments hadn’t been covered by MaineCare.

Earlier this month, Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services announced that it was pausing MaineCare reimbursements for some providers and health care facilities because of the $118 million budget shortfall. GOP state legislators blocked a budget bill that would have shorn up funding for MaineCare. Their callous move comes on the heels of the GOP-controlled House passing a federal budget framework that includes a shocking $880 billion in Medicaid cuts. The proposed Medicaid cuts include eliminating the 90% federal funding match rate for every person enrolled in expanded Medicaid programs. Here in Maine, that would put health care at risk for 100,000 people.

Other proposed cuts include capping per-person spending, which would likely mean cutting dental and vision care, and adding a Medicaid work requirement, which could kick hundreds of thousands of people off the program through onerous reporting requirements even though most Medicaid recipients are employed.

The Senate and House must next come up with matching budget proposals and vote on them again by October. There’s still time to stop these cuts if we act now. And we need to hold our state legislators accountable at the same time we’re fighting federal cuts.

Health care is a fundamental human right. We should be expanding Medicaid even further, not cutting it. If we learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that we are  interconnected, and all of us suffer when segments of our society can’t access health care.

For the good of all Mainers, we must come together to protect Medicaid.