State can't ignore need after federal cuts to health care

By Sterling Harders and Jilma Meneses / For The Herald

Last year, President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress passed H.R. 1, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill, a generationally damaging bill that will profoundly harm hundreds of thousands of people in Washington state when it fully takes effect.

Nationwide, millions of Americans will lose their health coverage through Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act. In Washington alone, an estimated 390,000 residents are expected to be pushed off coverage, including roughly 30,000 refugees and asylum seekers from countries such as Ukraine, Nicaragua and Syria, who have paid into the Medicaid System. Among them are 3,000 seniors and people with disabilities who will not only lose health insurance, but also the life-sustaining long-term care services that allow them to survive.

Losing long-term care is not an abstract policy outcome. It means losing help with the most basic tasks of daily living: eating, bathing, dressing, and taking medications. It means risking eviction from nursing homes and adult family homes. It means families scrambling to fill impossible gaps in care.

The human cost will be staggering. Thousands of families will face crushing medical bills. Preventive care will disappear. Diagnoses will be missed. Conditions will worsen. People will end up in emergency rooms and ambulances at far greater cost to all taxpayers, affecting everyone. Some will die. This is not only a moral failure. It is fiscally reckless.

https://www.heraldnet.com/2026/03/07/comment-state-cant-ignore-need-after-federal-cuts-to-health-care/