Activism
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Editorial
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August 8, 2025
We’ve got the possibility to form the longer term by constructing a system of care that leaves nobody behind.
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Ai-jen Poo speaks as Care advocates gentle 8,000 candles for 80 million Individuals who depend on Medicaid throughout a 60-hour vigil on July 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C.(Picture by Brian Stukes / Getty Photos for Caring Throughout Generations)
This text seems within the
September 2025 subject, with the headline “What’s Subsequent Is As much as Us.”
It’s been 60 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicaid and Medicare Act into legislation, and people applications have constructed a security internet of look after American households. Sixty years since advocates, organizers, and households got here collectively and refused to let our nation abandon adults as they aged into poverty and low-income staff as they struggled to afford healthcare. However within the wake of the biggest reduce to Medicaid in historical past, that is no unusual anniversary.
At the moment, almost 80 million individuals depend on Medicaid for care. From masking 40 p.c of all childbirths to almost 70 p.c of residence look after older and disabled individuals, Medicaid is greater than a line merchandise. It has represented a promise that irrespective of the ups and downs of life, our skill to look after each other, from technology to technology, will likely be protected.
The $1 trillion in cuts included within the huge finances invoice signed into legislation in July, nonetheless, put look after 17 million individuals in danger. The caregivers, the direct care staff, the disabled and chronically ailing, and the households juggling all of it will bear the brunt of the ache. This large, ugly invoice tells us that our care, and our lives, are disposable.
The promise of Medicaid is being shattered. However within the wake of this devastation, the dream of one thing higher is coming into view. We’ve got the possibility to form the longer term by constructing a system of care that leaves nobody behind. From healthcare to paid household and medical depart, from inexpensive, high quality childcare to growing old and incapacity care—a brand new system of care that displays the true realities and pressures on our households is lengthy overdue.
Even earlier than these cuts, these applications had been inadequate, underfunded, and inaccessible to far too many. Thousands and thousands of us had been already struggling to entry the care we want and deserve. Household caregivers, sandwiched between elevating a younger baby and supporting growing old dad and mom, are buckling beneath the burden of the monetary and emotional price. Care staff are taking second and third jobs, as a result of they’ll’t afford to assist their very own households on the poverty wages they earn. Greater than 700,000 eligible households are caught on ready lists for residence care, and rural nursing properties are shuttering, with out the workforce mandatory to satisfy the demand.
With our present care system on the brink and look after tens of millions hanging within the steadiness, the query of what comes subsequent is as much as us to reply. Now could be the time to construct towards a future the place nobody is left to navigate sickness, incapacity, growing old, or parenthood alone. A future the place households have the time and assist they should look after each other with out sacrificing earnings or stability. A future the place care staff are supported and acknowledged as important, with good wages, sturdy protections, and dignity on the job. On this future, care will not be expendable; it’s prioritized as the muse of a thriving society.
Present Problem
However this future doesn’t come to us—we construct it, collectively.
Simply as generations earlier than us fought for a assure of healthcare and financial safety, delivering us Social Safety, Medicaid, Medicare, and the Individuals With Disabilities Act, now it’s our flip. These applications didn’t simply occur; they had been constructed by individuals who dared to demand extra and arranged to make it actual. We should observe their lead and struggle for extra than simply saving the naked minimal.
In late July, Caring Throughout Generations and our companions hosted a whole lot of households on the Nationwide Mall for 60 hours, holding a vigil to mark the 60 years since Medicaid was created. We got here collectively in our shared worry about what it means to lose Medicaid. We raised our voices to let our elected representatives know that we’ll not let their cruelty go unanswered. And we let our rage spark our dedication to make sure that the subsequent 60 years of care aren’t like this.
We deserve insurance policies that allow us thrive. To get there, we’ve to maintain coming collectively—not solely in moments of disaster, however in our on a regular basis lives. Every of us should decide to displaying up and organizing others to demand change.
Solely we are able to plant the seeds for what comes subsequent: a way forward for care value combating for.
On this second of disaster, we want a unified, progressive opposition to Donald Trump.
We’re beginning to see one take form within the streets and at poll bins throughout the nation: from New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s marketing campaign centered on affordability, to communities defending their neighbors from ICE, to the senators opposing arms shipments to Israel.
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Sincerely,
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, The Nation
Aa-ja poo
Ai-jen Poo is the chief director of Caring Throughout Generations and the president of the Nationwide Home Staff Alliance, the main nonprofit group working to convey home staff dignity and equity.
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