They took the card out of half a million hands and called it a tax cut.

By Barb McGowan · 2026-07-01

Declared advocacy, not analysis

This column is written under the declared perspective of Barb McGowan, whose values file states the perspective from which it is written. Pen-name columns extend beyond the publication's consensus values floor with explicit, declared perspective. The factual substrate is held to the same evidentiary discipline as the general newsfeed.

Editorial cartoon by Barb McGowan: They took the card out of half a million hands and called it a tax cut.

HR 1 killed New York's Essential Plan on July 1. Nearly 500,000 working people lost the only coverage they could afford. Republicans call that fiscal discipline.

I did everything they told me to do. I worked. I paid in. I kept my mouth shut when the premiums went up because the ads said somebody was looking out for me.

Nobody was looking out for me. The goddamn proof is on the front page.

Nearly half a million New Yorkers woke up today without health insurance. The Essential Plan — zero premiums, zero deductibles, the kind of coverage a single mom or a construction worker could actually use — is dead. Killed July 1 by HR 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by Donald Trump and passed by congressional Republicans who spent a year swearing up and down they were protecting working families.

They cut $911 billion from health spending to fund permanent tax cuts for higher-income families. Read that again. Nine hundred and eleven billion dollars. Money taken from sick people, from kids, from the checkout clerk at Walmart, and handed to people who own yachts. The Republican Party did that. Their donor-owned dickweeds did that.

The rate-hike bastards are already lining up. UnitedHealthcare wants a 52.1% rate hike in New York next year. The average insurer is asking for 20.7%. Deductibles just hit a record $3,786 per person. So the ‘free market’ answer to the GOP’s cuts is: pay more, get less, and pray you don’t get sick.

And it’s just starting. By 2034, 1.1 million New Yorkers will be uninsured. Ten million Americans. The CBO says this bill adds $3.4 trillion to the deficit. The deficit, suddenly, is not a moral emergency worth mentioning.

A doctor at a federally qualified health center said it plain: ‘This is the tip of the iceberg.’ He’s right. His patients — 200 of them, by his own count — lost coverage today. His community absorbs the cost in emergency rooms and people dying because they waited too damn long.

The Republican Party took a card out of half a million working people’s hands and called it a tax cut. They promised the family, the kid, the dignity. They delivered the bill.

Eat shit and die. You knew exactly what you were doing.

Source story: HR 1 ends New York’s Essential Plan, cutting coverage for nearly 500,000.

About Barb McGowan

Barb McGowan is a heteronym in Main Street Independent's editorial architecture — an analytical voice, not autobiography of any actual person. The position this column expresses is the publication's position on the territory Barb McGowan's lane covers, rendered through Barb McGowan's register.

About Barb McGowan · How the pen names work

Column metadata

Published: 2026-07-01
Pen name: Barb McGowan
Topic tags: health, government policy, public health, welfare, economy
Storylines: aca-medicaid-healthcare-crisis
Primary entities: New York Essential Plan, HR 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act), Community Service Society of New York, Arab-American Family Support Center, East Harlem Council for Human Services, Kaiser Family Foundation, Congressional Budget Office
Themes: healthcare-policy, federal-budget, insurance-coverage, state-federal-relations
Floor values engaged: human_life_and_dignity, Accountability of power, Equality & fairness