They told us for forty years we can’t afford universal healthcare.
Then Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and carved nearly a trillion goddamn dollars out of Medicaid. A trillion dollars. To fund tax breaks for people who already have their own fucking doctor.
Let that land. The richest country on earth spends twice per person what every other developed nation spends on healthcare. Twice. And we still have 28 million people with no insurance — the number went up since 2023. Worse outcomes across the board: lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality. A Yale study found Medicare for All would save 68,000 lives a year and cut spending by 13 percent. Four hundred and fifty billion dollars in savings. But saving money for patients doesn’t write campaign checks.
Thirty-five cents of every healthcare dollar goes to insurance administration and corporate profit. Not treatment. Not the nurse working triple her safe patient load. Not the mother terrified to take her kid to the ER because the copay might be the rent. Thirty-five cents to middlemen who produce nothing and answer to nobody.
And the people who cut Medicaid — the “fiscal conservatives,” the family-values crowd, the personal-responsibility preachers — found a trillion for their donors overnight. Congresswoman Stansbury pointed out the obvious: the Trump administration spent $37.5 billion on its war on Iran, but somehow the money for your kid’s asthma inhaler is always too much to find.
Nurses testified. Doctors testified. They said the profit motive has to go. These are the people holding the bedpan at 3 a.m. They know what the lobbyists don’t want you to hear.
“We can’t afford it” was never about the money. It was about who gets paid in the gap. Insurance companies. Pharma. The CEO class pulling down millions while your neighbor chooses between the prescription and the grocery bill.
Fuck your fiscal responsibility. You found a trillion when you wanted to. You just didn’t want to find it for us.
Source story: Progressive Democrats hold Medicare for All hearing as uninsured ranks grow.