About 80 people gathered in the Court Plaza in Baker City at noon Wednesday, July 2, to protest potential cuts by Congress to Medicaid and food stamps and to call on Rep. Cliff Bentz to vote against any bill that includes those cuts.

“We can make him change his vote,” said Tamie Cline, a registered nurse from Hermiston who is president of the Oregon Nurses Association. “Eastern Oregon has always looked out for its own, and we’re proving that again today.”

Members of the nurses association were joined by Baker City residents as well as representatives from the Service Employees International Union, which represents many state employees, Indivisible Baker County, Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and the Oregon Food Bank.

Attendees stood in the Court Plaza, on the east side of Main Street, holding signs, many bearing slogans referring to Bentz, the Ontario Republican who represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, which is most of the state east of the Cascades. Slogans included:

• “Will Bentz Pay Your Medical Bills?”

• “Don’t Be A Coward Cliff. Choose Your Constituents Not Billionaires”

• “Medicaid Cuts Kill”

• “Baker City Residents Against Cruelty”

Cline, who was one of several speakers, talked about the federal spending bill that the U.S. Senate passed this week and that is being debated in the House of Representatives.

Cline called the bill “an assault on rural health care and food security in Oregon.”

She said the proposed cuts in federal spending in the bill would result in tens of thousands of Eastern Oregon residents losing “access to essential lifesaving services” including the Oregon Health Plan. That’s the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents. About 60% of the Oregon Health Plan’s budget is federal money allocated by Congress.

Cline, who drew a chorus of boos from the audience when she mentioned Bentz, called the federal budget bill “dangerous, reckless and heartless.”

Other speakers

Alex Aghdaei of Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon focused on potential cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP, known colloquially as food stamps.

Aghdaei said the federal bill could cut food benefits to more than 100,000 Oregonians.

“We believe every person deserves food, and no one should be abandoned by the people they elect to serve them,” Aghdaei said, calling the bill a “betrayal.”

“This bill will kill, and Cliff Bentz is choosing to do that.”

Aghdaei urged people to call Bentz’s office and “flood his inbox” with emails, to “draw a moral line in the sand.”

“This is about who we are,” Aghdaei said. “This is what democracy looks like and what we’re fighting for.”

Lindsay Grosvenor, a registered dietitian from Malheur County who works with the Oregon Food Bank, said “we’re here because we’re angry and we’re demanding change.”

Grosvenor called potential cuts to Medicaid and food stamps a “direct threat to the lives of our people and the future of our communities.”

She noted that about 70% of children in Bentz’s district are enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan.

Grosvenor said deliveries of food to food banks have been reduced due to recent federal spending freezes.

“We can’t allow our children to suffer due to budget cuts,” she said. “When will enough be enough?”

Stacey Holeman of The Dalles, a member of Indivisible Oregon, said the proposed federal cuts wouldn’t affect only people enrolled in programs such as Medicaid.

She said cuts will also harm rural hospitals because they are required by law to treat people in emergencies but would receive less compensation. That would raise costs, including insurance premiums, for everyone, she said.

Cline made a similar point, citing a Facebook post from the Saint Alphonsus Medical Group, which operates hospitals in Baker City and Ontario, stating that 72% of patients at the group’s hospitals in Oregon and Idaho are covered by either Medicaid or Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly.

Cline said federal cuts could jeopardize the future of some rural hospitals, or at least contributed to hospitals eliminating some services.

She said she’s also concerned about mounting stress prompting nurses to quit, saying she wouldn’t blame nurses who left the profession.

“We can’t afford to lose nurses, we can’t afford to lose hospitals, we can’t afford to lose lives,” Cline said.

She said the issue is not political.

“This is about Eastern Oregon,” Cline said. “We can raise our voices and we can demand better. We have to.”