Wake County mom Maddie Wertenberg praised Medicaid for changing her family’s life by covering costs associated with her son Oliver’s premature birth. (Photo: Rob Schofield)

The next time someone tries tell you that the North Carolinians with Medicaid health insurance are lazy slackers who participate in a wasteful program that warrants the massive bloodletting President Trump just approved, tell them talk to an actual frightened person who depends on the program.

Someone like Maddie Wertenberg. She’s a Wake County mom who had private health insurance, but who still only avoided being stuck with life-altering hospital bills for the care of her premature baby, because he was so tiny he qualified for Medicaid.

Or someone like Crystal Upchurch. She’s a lifetime Raleigh resident who is only alive because Medicaid covers the cost of the daily dialysis treatments she receives.

The bottom line: Proponents of Trump’s big bill may say they have no intention of cutting off people like Maddie and Crystal, but the massive funding cuts make it inevitable that vast numbers of people with similar stories will be sentenced to crippling debt and premature death. And the sheer cruelty at work here, and the terror its inflicting on millions of good people, is hard to overstate.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.