More than a thousand chanting healthcare workers, activists and local officials filled the Los Angeles Convention Center on Thursday afternoon to protest pending trillion-dollar healthcare cuts contained in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“Healthcare right now in America is bad,” said Romond Phillips, a mobile clinic driver, who attended the rally. “I’m out on the front lines, so I see the need for it.”
David Rolas, a community advocate from South L.A., came out to the rally to show his support. He says, growing up, he remembers how hard it was to get access to healthcare and how many people died because of it. He was diagnosed with diabetes over 20 years ago, and today, he gets healthcare through Covered California.
“It’s helped me get the medicine I need, like my insulin,” said Rolas. “As I get older, I want to make sure I’m around for my kids. But my insulin isn’t cheap, so thankfully, I have affordable healthcare right now, but I will be affected by these changes.”
Earlier this week, Democrats in the Senate refused to vote for a Republican short-term funding bill, which excluded an extension of enhanced premium tax credits. These credits, enacted in 2021, helped healthcare plans offered through the Affordable Health Care Act (known as Obamacare) to remain affordable. Without an extension, the credits will expire.
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which was passed earlier this year, proposes nearly a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. With these changes, millions of Americans will face higher insurance premiums and possibly lose coverage. Democrats are fighting to get the subsidies extended and are demanding that Republicans reverse the Medicaid cuts.
The dispute over healthcare cuts led to the government shutdown this week.
At the rally, Holly Mitchell, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors who represents the city’s 2nd District, says she’s fearful of going back to the days before Obamacare. Her district is made up of 2 million Angelenos, with 850,000 enrolled in MediCal.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not going back there,” Mitchell said. “Those are horrible, inhumane, dangerous times. Black, brown and poor people die at a higher rate than they should have because they didn’t have access to healthcare.”
The rally was organized by St. John’s Community Health, a nonprofit aimed at providing healthcare to underserved communities.
Jim Mangia, president of the organization, announced that St. John’s plans to build a coalition of community-based organizations, labor unions, clinics and hospitals that would get an affordable healthcare measure on next year’s county voting ballot.
“It would go directly to voters and raise hundreds of millions of dollars to save healthcare for our most vulnerable neighbors,” said Mangia. “It would build a national example that can be replicated across the country, to undermine Trump’s billionaire tax cuts, and restore the programs and healthcare our communities need so desperately.”
The working title for the initiative is the Los Angeles County Emergency and Essential Healthcare Restoration Measure. It’s still in its early stages, with ballot language being drafted. Mangia expects that the county would need to gather around $500 million to fill the new gaps Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will leave in residents’ healthcare plans.
Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who represents California’s 37th District, said cuts will hit her constituents hard, noting that there are 400,000 people who rely on Medicaid. About 3.5 million people in the state could lose their health insurance, she said.
“It’s about kicking people off of their healthcare benefits,” said Kamlager-Dove.
She blames the Republican party for the government shutdown, saying, “If they want to keep the government open, they would have, they would have negotiated with Democrats, but they chose not to.”
Republicans have, in turn, blamed Democrats for the closure and have said they are open to making changes to healthcare policy later.
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