Last week, I read an article in
the Salt Lake Tribune reprinted from the New York Times about how
hospitals across the country are seeing more and more uninsured patients in
their emergency rooms and clinics. Some reported an increase of about 20
percent. Many hospital executives attributed this trend to the One Big
Beautiful Bill Act of July 2025 that provided trillions of dollars in tax cuts
and paid for a portion of them with cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and a few other
items, including cuts to clean-energy initiatives. Democrats warned of the
impact this bill would have on millions of Americans, but the Republicans
didn’t care. They passed this bill without a single Democratic vote. I prefer
to call this legislation the Big Ugly Billionaire Bill Act, or BUBBA. And BUBBA
is everything the Democrats warned it would be.
According to the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget, the bill, as written, would provide tax cuts (that
benefit primarily the wealthy) of $5.36 trillion. To help pay for these cuts,
BUBBA slashes health-care payments by $1.1 trillion and SNAP (or food stamps)
benefits by $200 billion. Another $540 billion is saved by phasing out tax
credits for clean energy and electric vehicles. BUBBA also increased defense
spending by $173 billion (maybe they were anticipating the war in Iran?) and
immigration and border spending by $176 billion. The overall effect of BUBBA,
as written, is projected to be an increase in the debt of $4.11 trillion. If
the Republicans get their way, though, and make the provisions in BUBBA
permanent, the overall effect will be an increase in the debt of $5.52
trillion.
In addition to passing BUBBA, the
Republicans also refused to extend health insurance subsidies that took effect
during the COVID pandemic. Their refusal is expected to cause between 3.6 and 4
million Americans to lose their health insurance. In total, financial hardship
is expected to cause over 20 million Americans to lose their health insurance.
The increase in uninsured people visiting emergency rooms is simply proof that
the Republican attack on health care is succeeding. All this while more and
more wealth migrates into the pockets of people who don’t need any more money
but can’t seem to get enough. They buy politicians and avoid paying taxes, so
our ballooning federal debt just expands faster and faster.
When the Democrats are in power,
the Republicans scream and holler about the debt. But when they are in power, they
do everything in their power to increase it at a far swifter clip than the
Democrats ever manage. The hypocrisy here is too extreme to adequately describe
with words. Basically, the Republicans got what they have always wanted: as
much money as possible going to the wealthy, and millions of Americans priced
out of health insurance.
We. Are. The. Only. Country. On.
Earth. That. Does. This! Every other advanced country and most underdeveloped
countries provide health care to all of their citizens, and even to
noncitizens. And they do it for half of what we pay and get better health
results. When my oldest son was serving a mission in Germany, his appendix
ruptured, and he spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, half of that time in
the ICU after undergoing surgery to remove the appendix and treat the infection
that had spread throughout his abdomen. While still recuperating, he was
assigned to the mission office after his release from the hospital, and so he
got to see the bill that Missionary Medical ended up paying. It was so much
less than my outpatient hernia surgery in America that my eyes almost popped
out of my head. Yes, he (or the Church) benefited from Germany’s “socialized”
medicine, even though he was not a German citizen.
We are also the only country where
citizens regularly declare bankruptcy because of medical bills. According to Forbes,
“7.4 percent of U.S. residents experience catastrophic healthcare expenses
annually. . . . Further, estimates suggest that inability to afford costs of
medical care contributes to at least 530,000 personal bankruptcy filings
annually.”1 Why do we put up with such a brutal and uncivilized
health-care system? There is only one answer: the Republican Party.
Oh, we have plenty of money to
give tax breaks to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and to spend hundreds of billions
on an ill-advised war in Iran that Trump’s ego won’t let him pull out of. But
we don’t have enough to give food to starving children or basic health care to
the working class. What kind of sick society are we? What kind of Christians
are the Evangelicals and Mormons who keep voting for this benighted party? And
now that the Republicans are learning that their policies are extremely
unpopular and are seeing a potential calamity in November, they are
resurrecting the old idiotic Communist scare from the 1950s. Joseph McCarthy
would be proud.
The damage being done by the
Republican Party, not just to our constitutional republic but also to millions
of individual lives, will not be easy to undo. Some things may never get fixed.
And what do I hear from my Mormon friends and neighbors? Well, most of them are
so uninformed they don’t have a clue about what is happening in their own
country. So, they keep voting Republican, because, well, abortion and gay
marriage, you know, and now they can toss in trans men participating in women’s
sports. As a former member of our ward once said in our high priests group,
“Well, what other issues are there?” I could have strangled him. But he was my
friend and a good, faithful Latter-day Saint who hadn’t bothered to pay
attention to the world he lives in.
Now, here’s a sad fact. Guess who
else is abysmally uninformed? Donald Trump. He has surrounded himself with
people who tell him what he wants to hear and who are afraid to tell him the
truth. This ranges from unflattering poll numbers to the actual inventory
figures of America’s missiles. He even has a cute little shadow named Natalie
Harp (aka the “human printer”) who follows him everywhere he goes and feeds him
positive news stories about himself, often carrying a portable printer to
provide physical copies on the spot. Trump doesn’t read much else, ignoring briefings
and serious news sources. His diet is primarily Truth Social and Fox News. So,
we have to wonder what he really understands about the world and the complex
circumstances his whimsical decisions affect. He lives in a bubble of his own
making that keeps him from seeing the real damage he is causing.
Well, back to where I started. BUBBA
is doing exactly what BUBBA was designed to do, and millions of Americans (including
many Latter-day Saints) are losing their health insurance and the food they
need to be productive citizens, and the Republican politicians are cheering and
lying about it all. I just hope that in November, Trump’s incompetence will
obstruct his intentions, and we will have a free and fair election. If so,
maybe we can start to turn this country around. But I’m not holding my breath.
The Constitution is hanging by that proverbial thread, and the Mormons, led by
Senator Mike Lee, are rushing forward with scissors.
_____________________
1. Joshua P.
Cohen, “Increasing Burdens of Medical Debt and Bankruptcy Are Uniquely
American,” Forbes, April 5, 2026, https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2026/04/05/increasing-burdens-of-medical-debt-and-bankruptcy-are-uniquely-american/.
