A group of state lawmakers and local medical providers gathered Tuesday at the Santa Cruz Community Health Center in Live Oak to sound the alarm on President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA).
Despite its name, the bill will remove millions of people across the U.S. from their health insurance plans and pauperize plans for millions more.
That was the message from Congressman Jimmy Panetta and a cadre of medical professionals, who stressed that the bill will not deter them from their primary mission.
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Donaldo Hernandez, a doctor who serves as vice-chair to the California delegation of the American Medical Association. “We’re going to be right here making sure that we keep doing the thing we have sworn to do, the thing we love, and that’s taking care of people in our communities.”
According to Panetta, OBBBA is a “a self-inflicted wound that will hurt working families throughout this country, that will decrease health coverage in the 19th Congressional District and could lead to closures of rural hospitals in our communities.”
The bill, he said, will provide $4 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires and corporations, which will be paid for by adding $3.8 trillion to the national debt, and $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years, and slashing $1 trillion in Medicaid services, leading to 17 million people losing health care.
In addition, the bill cuts $191 billion in federal contributions to state Medicaid programs, with zero expansions in coverage, and imposes state-directed cuts of $149 billion in reimbursements to Medicare rates.
OBBBA also adds co-payments for certain economic levels for people on Medicare, denies transgender youth care, and prevents care for legal immigrants except those with green cards.
Moreover, the legislation implements work requirements that will kick 12 million people off Medicaid, and requires able-bodied adults 18-64 to show proof of 80 hours per month of work, school or volunteer time.
But while such a proposition might seem simple, it doesn’t mention that two-thirds of the people receiving benefits are in nursing homes and unable to work, Panetta said.
“There is a reason why there are no work requirements at the federal level,” he said. “Because it prevents people from getting Medicaid.”
Some 37,000 people in Santa Cruz County could lose Medicaid or coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
That could be devastating in Santa Cruz County, where roughly 71,000 people are enrolled in Medi-Cal and 93% have health insurance, said Health Officer Lisa Hernandez.
Local clinics, she added, serve 14,000 patients through 100,000 appointments annually.
Community Bridges spokesman Tony Nuñez said he is “utterly devastated” by passage of the bill, and the fact that “not even four Republicans in the House had the courage to stand up and stop the ‘Big Disastrous Bill’ from passing.”
The reality, he said, is that an estimated 17 million Americans will lose their healthcare coverage, and that devastating cuts—totaling nearly $300 billion over the next decade—will gut SNAP, the nation’s most vital food assistance program.
Worse, Nuñez said, is that lawmakers knew the harm this bill would cause.
The cuts will mean that many people will face longer wait times and fewer providers, and millions of people will go without regular care, flooding emergency rooms with preventable crises.
In addition, healthcare costs will rise for everyone, Nuñez said.
‘We should all be clear-eyed about what this moment represents,” he said. “It is the cost of apathy. It is a painful reminder that when we fail to vote with our values—not just in California, but across the country—we leave our most vulnerable neighbors exposed to decisions made without compassion or foresight.”
