Where We Stand: Fighting Harm

Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has been all the things those who voted against him feared, and he’s done little if any of the things to improve people’s lives that those who voted for him hoped. Indeed, instead of fulfilling his promises to make life more affordable, Trump’s tariffs sent the country and the world into an economic crisis.

Look at one issue that affects virtually all families—including people who work in healthcare and those who are dependent on healthcare—Medicaid. To pay for tax cuts that will heavily favor the well-off, Republicans in Congress are trying to cut $880 billion from Medicaid.

Medicaid is a foundational anchor of the American healthcare system. It covers 40 percent of births, 60 percent of nursing facility residents, and 19 percent of payments to hospitals. It’s critical for safety-net and rural hospitals—and for our schools, where it funds everything from nurses and occupational therapists to catheterization, audiology, and wheelchairs. By eliminating their healthcare coverage and access, Medicaid cuts would disproportionately hurt older adults, children, and people with disabilities.

Now, Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk are plundering programs that help the hungry, the poor, students, veterans, the sick, the elderly, and the disabled. Of course government should be more efficient, but this is taking a wrecking ball to the federal government and the services Americans rely on. And healthcare workers will be left to deal with the consequences, all on top of the moral injury they suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because the president refused to maintain the sensitive locations ban on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), healthcare workers now have to learn how to deal with ICE raids in their facilities (see here). His rollback of environmental protections means they have to prepare for worsening climate disasters (see here). And his elimination of artificial intelligence (AI) guardrails forces clinicians to devote more time to protecting patients from biased AI healthcare tools (see here).

In the short term, healthcare workers will face even more overloaded emergency departments: the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gutted its own core functions in reproductive health, tuberculosis elimination, violence prevention, asthma and air quality, and health equity. Long term, clinicians will struggle to provide cutting-edge care because Trump has broken the long-standing compact through which the government funds universities to conduct research. That research made the country stronger and healthier, and made our universities the best in the world—but it was cut to coerce colleges to restrict speech and academic freedom.

On top of all this, the Trump administration is undermining well-established science by lifting up science deniers, including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Because Kennedy is a vaccine skeptic who promotes misinformation, children are getting not only measles but also liver damage from being given too much vitamin A.

Our union is stepping up. We are fighting back in the courts against the harms the Trump administration is causing and in the court of public opinion, which we need to sway members of Congress to care more about their constituents than bowing to Trump. We are part of a lawsuit challenging the administration’s cuts to federal funding for crucial public health research at Columbia University. We are also sharing what we understand to be the best science available. That’s why we have pediatrician and public health expert Dr. Irwin Redlener in this issue (see here) calling on health professionals to stand up for science and their patients, and why we have partnered with Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and health policy expert, to offer “Vital Lessons,” a yearlong series of free webinars (see go.aft.org/o9p).

In his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Martin Luther King Jr. told us: The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. Yes, we have suffered some terrible setbacks, and there are forces trying to snap that arc. But when we organize, mobilize, build community, and win elections, we will shift the arc toward opportunity and justice for all.

That is why we have taken to the streets in these last two months to protect Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Veterans Affairs, and public education. We must elect people who will stand with working people, fighting for excellent healthcare as a human right, safe working conditions, higher wages, lower costs, great public schools, a secure retirement, and a voice at work.

We can’t be silent. We can protect our patients and alert our communities to how healthcare, public health, health research, and trust in science are being decimated. We can stand shoulder to shoulder and do what’s right if we seize this moment and build this movement.

[Photo credit: AFT]