“So this is a real crisis. And I cannot emphasize enough how unacceptable it is,” U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) said of Republican House budget proposals that include $880 billion in Medicaid cuts.

Pallone was speaking Wednesday at a news conference of Democrats and health care advocates at Central Jersey Medical Center in Perth Amboy, one of 23 community health centers across the state that depend on federal Medicaid money.

“The level of [proposed cuts] would just cripple community health centers, cripple hospitals,” Pallone said. “And what the Republicans are saying is, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it because the state’s going make up the difference.’ Well that is simply a lie.”

“This is something that we really ought to be afraid of,” said Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex). Coughlin said New Jersey received $12.8 billion in federal Medicaid funds to support health care spending in the current $56 billion state budget. But the next state budget will be complicated by structural deficits.

“We don’t have an extra $12 billion laying around in government … We can’t hope to find a way to replace that at the state level. It’s just not there,” Coughlin added.

Federal funding pays for 50% of New Jersey’s Medicaid programs. And advocates for those programs said cuts to them could devastate their ability to provide critical care for New Jersey’s 2 million Medicaid recipients.

“Who do we throw off? Will it be the person with disabilities? Our seniors? Our children? Our low-income workers? Who will it be?” asked Maura Collinsgru of New Jersey Citizen Action.

Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said benefits would not be cut. “It’s non-benefit-related reforms to the program, right? Medicaid is infamous for fraud, waste and abuse. By some estimates, large percentages of the dollars allocated there are wasted and stolen,” Johnson said.

New Jersey’s three Republican congressmen had no comment Wednesday. In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump said, “Medicare, Medicaid — none of that stuff is going to be touched.”

The House is expected to vote sometime next week on its budget, which the president prefers over the Senate’s version.