THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE

People ask me why I oppose trump and his policies. 

I serve on the board of a community health center as Treasurer and Chair of Finance. Our centers provide care to roughly 30,000 people, most of whom are on Medicaid, with the rest living on the fragile edge of economic stability. These are hardworking people doing their best to make ends meet, some earning just at the poverty line, others slightly above it, but nearly all in a constant struggle to get by. For those without Medicaid or Medicare, we offer a sliding fee scale based on income, but even that is often a hardship.

Over the past fifteen years, the executive team supported by the volunteer board have worked tirelessly to build a high-quality system of care. The centers were once operated by another sponsor where quality and patient service lagged. Today, patient satisfaction has soared. Our medical and support staff are responsive, compassionate, and deeply committed to improving lives. The clinical outcomes speak for themselves. If I didn’t have a long-standing relationship with my own doctor, I would gladly use one of our centers.

As a member of the Quality Assurance Committee, I watched our “key performance indicators” move from red to yellow and many now proudly stand in the green. These metrics measure progress in controlling or preventing chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, hypertension, and obesity. We’ve expanded specialty services in pediatrics, prenatal and maternal care, nutrition, and behavioral health. Access to such comprehensive primary care is essential to prevent and treat illness, to sustain strong, healthy families. Seeing a mother receive support for her newborn or a child get nutritional help vital for development, these moments affirm the life-changing power of our work.

That’s why our last Finance Committee meeting was so difficult. Listening to the president’s policy impacts that will devastate the very people we serve was both depressing and infuriating. All the years of work, all the lives improved, now at risk in the name of tax breaks. How many people could be saved with the taxpayers millions to be spent on a plane gifted to trump that taxpayers don’t own, or the $20 Billion given to Argentina on personal whim?

Primary care services save lives. I know that firsthand. In January 2020, I began a stint as Chair of the Board and interim (unpaid) CEO of our local safety-net hospital. Then COVID hit. Each night through those terrible months, I reviewed the death certificates for those who had died in the previous 24 hours. As a safety-net hospital, we served many who were uninsured or on Medicaid. People often living in crowded, multigenerational homes, without access to consistent primary care. They would use the emergency room for their ‘doctor’. Follow-up was rare, not by choice, but because of the crushing realities of work, transportation, and time.

In those months, I read the death certificates of 364 souls. A clear and devastating pattern emerged. The vast majority suffered from one or more of five chronic conditions common among people living at or below the poverty line: chronic heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and COPD. It was as if COVID sought them out. Yet these are conditions that can be managed or prevented with access to primary and preventive care. Poverty had sentenced them to an early death. With the right care earlier in life, many could have survived the virus. These are the very mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters our health centers now serve.

And these are the same people who will lose access to care when the new Medicaid rules take effect. Most Medicaid recipients already struggle to complete annual recertifications because of the time-consuming paperwork that takes them away from work or childcare. Doubling the recertification requirement will double the disqualifications—producing the “savings” Congress needed to pass the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The impact won’t stop there. Our health centers may be forced to downsize as reimbursements shrink to offset trump’s reduced subsidy for Affordable Care Act premiums in July. Once again, the poorest will pay the highest price.

I have seen, up close, what limited access to healthcare does to Americans. The policies of the trump administration have already led to thousands of preventable deaths, including among children abroad after funding for USAID programs was cut. Now, with domestic health coverage on the chopping block, we risk repeating the same tragedy at home. These cuts will kill—not metaphorically, but literally—just as surely as COVID did.

This is ONE REASON WHY!

RESIST!!! & EDUCATE!!!