As President Donald Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law at a White House military family picnic on July 4, around 75 demonstrators gathered across from Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan sounding the alarm that the new legislation would harm the most vulnerable Americans.
Physicians for a National Health Program NY Metro, Indivisible, and Rise and Resist organized the Independence Day protest. Julie DeLaurier, a member of the political action group Rise and Resist, said the protesters were gut-punched and horrified at what she described as Republicans’ “gleeful” cruelty.
She joined the protest, which also included a die-in outside of Trump Tower, on the Fourth of July because it was “better than sitting at home and crying.”
“We’re going to fight this,” DeLaurier vowed. “We’re only six months into [the Trump administration]. We’ve got a long way to go, and we are here for the duration. We are never, ever going to sit down and take this. Other countries made the mistake. Other generations made that mistake. We will not make that mistake.”
Feeling ‘run over’ by Trump
DeLaurier also expressed her frustration with the Democratic leadership, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, for believing that they did not explore and use every possible avenue to stop the bill and Trump’s agenda. Republicans hold razor-thin majorities in both the House and Senate.
“They have unanimous consent. They have the filibuster. They used nothing to stop or stall these appointments [and] these bills,” DeLaurier said. “They’ve let Trump and the MAGAs run over them like Panzer tanks.”
The massive tax and spending bill cleared its final hurdle in the House on July 2 and calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, mostly benefiting the top 1% earners, as well as $350 billion for national security, including $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds.
The legislation also raises the national debt limit by $5 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which also projected it will add another $3 trillion to the national deficit — already at over $37 trillion and counting — over the next decade.
Losses to Medicaid and SNAP
Meanwhile, the new law cuts funding to programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by nearly $300 billion, as well as to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, by approximately $930 billion. The law imposes work requirements of at least 80 hours per month to be eligible for Medicaid coverage, and states offering Medicaid to undocumented immigrants would also lose federal funding.
Dr. Steve Auerbach, a retired pediatrician and public health doctor, told amNewYork that the United States is the only capitalist democratic country without universal healthcare, and cutting Medicaid would add more stress to an already fragile healthcare system, putting the lives of Americans at further risk.
Auerbach, who also serves on the board of directors of Physicians for the National Health Program New York Metro chapter, said every physician had stories about patients who didn’t have the money to fill prescriptions or tried to make a dose spread out that it didn’ take care of their health condition, people who were afraid to call the ambulance because of the bills and died because of a heart attack, or couldn’t afford to check out the lump in their breast and died of cancer.
“And now it’s going to get worse for the first time in American history, we’re actually going backwards on our already dysfunctional, limited health care,” Auerbach said. “As a patriot, why can’t the United States do this as well as every other rich capitalist democracy around the world? [Universal healthcare] is not a lefty fringe socialist commie thing.”
In a statement, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the big “ugly” bill would make life harder for working families and worked closely with the NY legislature to “brace for the impact and protect as many New Yorkers as possible.”
“There’s nothing beautiful about this bill,” Hochul said. “It’s a big, ugly betrayal — stripping health care, hiking costs, and slashing food assistance for millions. And it was made possible by New York’s seven Republican members of Congress. They wrote it. They endorsed it. Now they’re cheering it on, selling out the very people they were sent to Washington to represent.”
