It’s easy to find statistics on health care access in the media. It’s harder to find the lived experience of disabled people facing the loss of their health care. I am one of them, and I need Congress to act. On January 8, 17 Republicans (including Pennsylvania Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie) joined House Democrats to vote for a proposed three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Now an ACA extension is in the Senate’s hands.
These critical subsidies were cut by the so-called “one big beautiful bill” budget that Republicans rammed through Congress last summer, slashing Medicaid and the ACA while extending tax cuts for millionaires. Senator Dave McCormick, along with many of his Republican colleagues, has so far rejected every chance to restore our health care.
I’m a freelancer who relies on subsidized health insurance through Pennie, PA’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, along with about half a million of my fellow PA residents. Last July, I received a letter from Pennie notifying me that “unless Congress acts,” the price I would pay for my health insurance in 2026 could nearly double.
I could be among the estimated 10 million people nationwide who will lose their health insurance as a result of the Republican budget’s Medicaid and ACA cuts. I spent the latter half of 2025 in a panic: I can’t afford a doubled premium on top of rent, groceries, utilities, taxes, and rising inflation.
But I also can’t afford to stop treatment for my illness. I have bipolar disorder. Without treatment, I risk unemployment and long hospitalizations. Contrary to the usual narrative, mood disorders are common, and bipolar is highly treatable. But without proper management, many patients and their loved ones face devastating outcomes. I’m happy to say that I’m doing well and working full-time as a journalist thanks to a regimen of daily medications and weekly therapy covered by my insurance.
If people like me lose access to basic treatment plans, we could end up unable to work, bankrupted by hospital bills, and potentially homeless, deeply compounding our struggles as well as the costs to the medical system and the government. I planned for a worst-case scenario with my doctors, who researched where and how I could get my meds if I were to be uninsured in 2026, and I brainstormed fundraisers that might help me survive.
People who rely on Medicaid face similar fears.
According to the PA Department of Human Services, almost 3 million Pennsylvanians are currently enrolled in Medicaid (more than 660,000 in my home city of Philadelphia). Thanks to the “beautiful” budget reconciliation bill that McCormick voted for, about 310,000 people in PA will lose their Medicaid coverage (more than 70,000 of them in Philly).
The statewide effects of the looming cuts, which threaten the closure of many rural hospitals in Pennsylvania, are already being felt, but new restrictions on Medicaid eligibility won’t kick in until just after the 2026 midterms (how convenient for the leaders who voted for these cuts).
Over the last year, I have protested, written, and called my representatives in Congress regularly about this, including dozens of calls to McCormick’s offices. A request to meet with him went unanswered. On July 1, his office sent me an unlisted link to a two-minute YouTube video of the senator, with the comments turned off.
In the video, McCormick bemoans the federal deficit (without mentioning massive tax cuts for the rich) and says that Medicaid is the problem: it has grown too much. He claims that the budget bill targets “waste, fraud, and abuse” within Medicaid.
“And so what the reconciliation bill is going to do is ensure that working-age men without dependents … are required to work or at least volunteer to work,” he continues. Then, “we can secure the program for … the most vulnerable among us,” including disabled people.
He does not mention the expiring ACA credits, closing hospitals, skyrocketing premiums, or that according to data from KFF, 92 percent of Medicaid recipients are already working, unable to work, caring for someone, or going to school.
McCormick’s promise to protect vulnerable people has already failed. Last June, Pennie estimated that 270,000 Pennsylvanians will lose their ACA coverage due to higher costs in 2026. Since most Republicans in Congress have so far rejected every chance to stabilize the insurance market, my premium has risen by 33%. Others face even higher costs. But McCormick has another chance to do the right thing, with a vote in the Senate on a package that would extend the ACA subsidies.
“I’m focused very much to make sure that I understand the implications of this for Pennsylvania and [am] fighting for Pennsylvania’s interest,” McCormick says about the reconciliation bill in his video message about Medicaid. His public July 1 statement about the bill’s passage doesn’t mention Medicaid or the ACA.
Either McCormick does not understand the implications of this policy, or he believes that it is in the Commonwealth’s best interest for hundreds of thousands of constituents, including disabled workers like me, to lose our insurance. I am a human being. My life is not “waste, fraud, and abuse.” McCormick must vote to extend the ACA subsidies, and in the meantime, he should hear from everyone in Pennsylvania who believes health care is a human right.
