What Is America Without Its Health?

There’s a saying we’ve all heard before: “Health is wealth.” But it isn’t just a catchy aphorism. It’s the beating heart of human survival. Without our health, we have nothing—no energy to parent, no ability to work, no strength to dream. Yet in the United States, one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, healthcare is not a right. It’s a privilege—and one that millions of Americans struggle to obtain.

In 2025, we’re witnessing the slow suffocation of Medicaid, a program built to serve the most vulnerable: low-income families, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. It is not perfect. Like any large federal program, it suffers from waste and fraud that must be scrutinized and eliminated. But let’s not be fooled by the lazy narrative that all Medicaid recipients are freeloaders gaming the system. The truth is far more complicated—and far more human.

For more context, the "Big Beautiful Bill," which passed through the Senate on Tuesday, is a comprehensive legislative package that aims to significantly reshape federal spending, particularly impacting healthcare. For Medicaid, the bill proposes deep cuts—estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars—primarily through imposing strict work requirements, increasing administrative hurdles for enrollment, and reducing federal matching funds to states, especially those that expanded Medicaid. These changes are projected to cause millions of low-income Americans, including children, families, and people with disabilities and their at-home caregivers, to lose their health coverage.

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

While Medicare is not the primary target of direct cuts, it faces indirect impacts such as reduced funding from certain tax revenue changes and, critically, the loss of Medicaid assistance for millions of low-income Medicare beneficiaries ("dual-eligibles"), which would lead to higher out-of-pocket costs for their healthcare and prescription drugs.

I’ve spent my life documenting the harshest corners of the globe: war zones, refugee camps, clinics where a single aspirin is a luxury. I’ve seen the pain of those who’ve lost everything—but I’ve also seen what even the tiniest intervention in health can do to restore dignity and purpose. Here at home, I see something far more subtle, yet just as corrosive: Americans quietly crumbling under the weight of medical debt, chronic illness, and bureaucratic cruelty.

This isn’t just policy problem. It’s a moral one.

Medicaid currently covers over 85 million Americans, or roughly one in four citizens. It’s the largest source of health coverage in the U.S. Cuts to it are not hypothetical—they’re happening. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, since 2023, more than 20 million people have been kicked off Medicaid rolls due to the unwinding of pandemic-era protections. Many were dropped for procedural reasons: they missed a notice, filled out the wrong form, didn’t receive a text. These are working people, sick people, parents, children. This is the erosion of the safety net.

Meanwhile, debates rage in Washington about tax relief for billionaires and defense spending increases that dwarf the GDP of entire nations. In what universe is this making America great again?

Let’s be honest: health is not just an individual concern. It is a communal one. A sick society is a broken society. And a government that punishes its weakest members for their weakness is not a government rooted in greatness. It’s one drifting toward greed.

We must remember that illness is always visible. Autoimmune diseases, mental health disorders, chronicp fatigue, neurological impairments—many disabilities cannot be seen with the naked eye. But they are no less real. For those living with them, simply getting through the day is a victory. Medicaid allows these individuals to get their prescriptions, see a specialist, pay for a wheelchair, or access speech therapy for their child. These are not luxuries. They are lifelines.

When we cut these programs, we don’t just balance a budget—we slash the arteries of our collective health. We risk creating a two-tiered system where wealth buys wellness and poverty buys pain.

The implications are generational. Children who go without healthcare early in life face stunted development, lower academic performance, and higher rates of chronic illness in adulthood. A study by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that children enrolled in Medicaid are significantly more likely to graduate high school and attend college than those without coverage. It’s not just about staying alive—it’s about having a life worth living.

So what are we doing?

Are we really prepared to sacrifice a child’s insulin so that a billionaire can deduct a second yacht? Are we truly going to let a woman with lupus lose access to her meds so that hedge funds pay a lower rate than firefighters? At what point did we forget that healthcare is not a transaction—it’s a reflection of our values?

I often wonder what happened to “love thy neighbor.” What happened to “blessed are the merciful”? These are not partisan principles. They’re universal ones. Foundational ones. Ones we inscribe on church walls and family Bibles, but seem to forget when it comes to policy.

Jesus didn’t ask to see your insurance card before he healed the sick. He didn’t tell the leper to call Blue Cross Blue Shield. He simply helped. He saw their humanity, not their deductible.

What makes America great is not its GDP. It is not its skyscrapers or stock tickers. It is our willingness to care—for the least among us, for the tired mother, for the broken veteran, for the forgotten soul hunched over in a waiting room. We become less than ourselves when we fail to offer them a hand.

So I ask: Have we lost our compassion? Have we let ideology rot away at our empathy? Do we still believe in a common good?

Health is the centerpiece of existence. It should be the centerpiece of our policy, too. Until we recognize that, we remain a nation rich in dollars but bankrupt in soul.

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