President Donald Trump shakes hands with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson during a reception in Washington in 2025. July 22 Trump thanked GOP lawmakers for passing one big, beautiful bill. Credit: Chip Somodevilla – Getty Images
AMerican health care is on life support, and Republican policies are now threatening to pull the plug.
Last summer, all but five GOP lawmakers worked with the Trump administration to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” legislation that would ban health care for working families while funding tax breaks for billionaires. That is why I testified on October 8. at the House Democrats’ meeting in Washington, D.C., to speak out against this biased legislation because it will deepen the crisis at every level of our health care system.
As an emergency physician in Oregon with Northwest Medicine United, AFT Local 6552, I have had the privilege of serving my community for over a decade. Emergency physicians treat anyone who needs care, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
The emergency department is often called the frontline of healthcare, but I think it’s more accurate to call it the epicenter. As the tectonic plates of health care policy shift, we feel every tremor and rumble. We see the impact on our patients, their families, primary care providers, and physicians of all medical specialties.
Emergency medical professionals have been ringing the alarm bells for years. Across the country, there is a shortage of nurses, a shrinking number of primary care providers, overcrowded hospitals and ever-longer emergency room wait times. The COVID pandemic has exacerbated these challenges, overwhelming hospitals with more and sicker patients than they have ever seen. Health care never fully recovered. Patients are still treated in corridors and wait hours or even days to be admitted. What is depicted in the HBO Max show Pitt is what ER doctors and patients see every day.
Now more than ever, I worry about the future of our patients. The Republican tax bill cut Medicaid and did nothing to increase the tax credits that make health care affordable. Unless Congress acts, up to 15 million Americans, including small business owners and working families, will be unemployed by 2034. risk losing health insurance. Millions more will see their insurance premiums more than double.
The “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” will have families choose whether to pay for insurance, groceries or rent. Our friends, family, and neighbors will have to delay care, forgo doctor’s appointments, or skip medications because they can’t afford them. People will later seek care, get sick and, tragically, suffer or die needlessly.
This will affect not only people on Medicaid, but also those with private insurance or Medicare. The Republican Party controls the White House and Congress. Its cuts are already closing hospitals and clinics, especially in rural areas. When that happens, even Americans lucky enough to still have insurance are forced to travel further to get care — extra miles that can be the difference between a full, independent recovery and being bedridden or even dead in the case of time-critical emergencies like stroke or heart attack. Patients without primary care or insurance will go to the ER, further increasing overcrowding and wait times.
Delayed care for treatable conditions will be life-threatening in red and blue communities; emergency medical care is not recognized by parties.
These cuts don’t trim the fat, they cut to the bone. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What we need is simple: We need to protect and expand coverage, invest in safe staffing, and fund community hospitals so that care is available where people live.
The diagnosis is clear: healthcare is in critical condition. As an emergency physician, I will stop at nothing to properly assist a patient in crisis. Republicans in Congress must be prepared to do the same. They need to end this government shutdown and work with Democrats to fix the problem and ensure continued health care for Americans. If they decide to abandon health care, we will all suffer.
Contact us at letters@time.com.