This administration pretends it is for families. Yet the Republican Congress is moving to make massive cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides health care for nearly half of all children in the U.S.
The administration has already made children lose health care in some of the poorest countries by ending overseas assistance.
Now it is trying to deprive children here. Seventy percent of school districts rely on Medicaid to fund health personnel in schools. Who will look after sick children and determine whether they need to go home? And with no future COVID-19 protection for children, we can expect more cases in schools.
Children will no longer be able to get preventive health care or physical and mental health care when they are sick! Who will care for these children? Who will care for our children in schools who have special needs? That’s a service Medicaid has also been providing.
The current administration claims to want families to have more children at the same time it is taking away many of the services for children. What duplicity! If these officials really want to support families, they would be working toward providing free child care and health care and improving our education. How do Sweden and Finland so exceed us in these areas?
And the money that will be saved with these cuts — where is it going? You guessed it: more tax breaks for the wealthiest. In the meantime, are you willing to have our children sacrificed?
It’s time to stand up for all children: rich, poor, Black, white and brown. They all deserve this country’s care and support.
— Sue Gottschall, Chicago
Life without Medicaid
My family and I have relied on Medicaid throughout my kids’ childhood. We’ve jumped through every hoop, waiting in every line, filled out every form for years and years, and then waited with bated breath for our approval every year. All the work and all the stress have been so worth it.
Without Medicaid, how would we have taken care of the kids’ allergies? How would we have gotten care for the multiple cases of strep, the broken arm, the broken leg, the osteochondritis dissecans, the chronic headaches? How would I have gotten the yearly breast ultrasound that is always recommended after my mammogram? How would I have seen a cardiologist and a retina specialist? How would we have taken care of our mental health?
I will tell you: We wouldn’t have. We would have gone without groceries to pay for the emergencies and the rest we would have had to suffer through.
Medicaid is the overall coverage that everyone should have. It should not be cut. It should be expanded!
— Melanie Apel, Chicago
Ignoring those with needs
My grandchildren may not need Medicaid, but many children do. More than 25% of Illinois families rely on Medicaid for urgent medical needs. Cutting medical services to families who rely on them to give tax breaks to billionaires is unethical. It’s just wrong.
Medicaid also helps elderly people and those with disabilities. What has happened to our values? We’re helping wealthy people and ignoring those who really have needs?
We know the right thing to do, so let’s do it!
— Toni Rey, Evanston
Risk of tragic outcomes
I’m a mom of four, and two of my kids are seeking therapy. My oldest recently experienced a mental setback and is now attending a partial hospitalization program. With the school year nearly over, it’s clear that she was holding in a lot of emotions and needed an outlet to express herself, but didn’t know how to do so.
My son is also getting therapy because he struggles to express himself. Sometimes he gets angry and has difficulty using the coping strategies he has learned, especially due to his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which affects how he processes things.
I believe my kids need this support to help them grow into responsible members of society rather than becoming statistics. I care deeply about my kids and about other families facing similar challenges because mental health is an issue that often gets overlooked. Without proper support, there’s a risk of tragic outcomes that otherwise could be prevented.
I hope my personal story emphasizes the importance of Medicaid for my family and others who need help. I need members of Congress to take action and not pass that “Big Beautiful Bill”!
— Dominique Robitson, Chicago
Focus of evolved society
A sign of an evolved civilized society is one that consciously takes good care of its children’s health needs. Medicaid does just that for children in need.
— Willard Clay, Grayslake
Advice for Republicans
Break this “Big Beautiful Bill” into two parts. Do border and military funding and tax and debt limit provisions now, with Phase II later in the year. This legislation should have been completed by late March.
Instead, congressional Republican leaders, with their numerous breaks, have allowed this unnecessary delay in passage to occur.
As despicable as U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and the rest of their Democratic confederates are, at least these people formulate their plans and expeditiously execute their major objectives into forceful action.
As usual, these feckless, clueless Republicans always shoot themselves in the foot as they fight among themselves and grandstand during Capitol Hill telecasts, while flittering and bouncing around in the halls of this hallowed structure like a bunch of 10th graders.
If these Republicans fail to get this ever-so-strategic tax program into law this year, they are going to blow President Donald Trump’s agenda to resurrect the United States from the ashes of Joe Biden’s presidency. They then will lose the House in 2026. Jeffries will be the speaker, acting as a puppet for Pelosi hiding in the weeds. It will be impeachment city in the House, with a Senate trial all over again. America’s ship of state will stall and founder in these prospective turbulent seas. The last two years of the Trump administration will be a disaster.
— Earl Beal, Terre Haute, Indiana
Origin of our discontent
Within two weeks of his election, Pope Leo XIV has thrown down the gauntlet for nations of the world to seek peace through unity and love, a very tall order to fill, indeed. How can it be accomplished?
Starting with the U.S., if one looks back a few decades prior to the first Barack Obama administration, Americans generally seemed willing to tolerate each other. A two-party system was fairly accepted and respected. Reversals of party dominance took place regularly and with relatively smooth transitions. After the second Obama administration, everything changed. What was different? Surely, not the people or governmental institutions.
A suggestion is that our perceptions of “the other side” changed. This transitional period coincides with the dramatic rise of social media and related communications technology at the grassroots level, potentially making each individual an agent of news distribution, for better or worse. Suddenly, hearsay, whether or not grounded in fact, could be amplified to the rest of the world in a nanosecond, with fact-finding considered secondary or not at all. Polarization of political views grew to become the new normal across wide swaths of the population. Leaders of opposing parties, their platforms and their views, became either all good or all bad in the eyes of constituents, with very little gray area permitted. It is much easier to vilify an opponent rather than to find the good he or she has to offer.
Taking a step back, we could notice that the people on either side of the great political divide are the same ones we thought we knew or at least had a handle on before 2008, and prior to the time when social media took on a major role in our lives. We could also recognize that each of us is not all good or all bad, all the time. Each of us has flaws, but more importantly, each of us has much greater potential to do good in life, which outweighs the bad found in each of us.
In the 1960s, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was an iconic animated TV film that taught this invaluable lesson. The abominable snowman terrorized the North Pole with his size and sheer power, but by the end of the show, Santa Claus and the elves found a way to turn perceived negatives into actual positives by utilizing the snowman’s height to place a star at the top of the Christmas tree. Ultimately, the characters were able to work together — not despite, but because of, their perceived differences.
I would like to imagine a young Pope Leo XIV-to-be growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago in the 1960s watching the same TV shows as me and thinking how we might all work together to get along later in life.
— Mark Grenchik, Chicago
Justice Roberts is failing
With the support of Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts versus Vice President JD Vance, the Tribune Editorial Board’s liberal blindness is evident (“Why Roberts is right and Vance is wrong,” May 25). The judicial system has simply overreached with most battles of the administration.
Wallpapered over is the fact that most resistance is coming from Democrat-appointed judges or Republican simps. Roberts has not done his job in controlling activists judges and national injunctions.
— Bob Ash, Nokomis, Florida
Pride, anger and fear
Tears came to my eyes when I watched the concert on Memorial Day. The tears were due to pride, anger and fear.
I was proud that the Founding Fathers risked their lives to create a new country and set the standard for those willing to make their own ultimate sacrifice to preserve and protect our democracy. My anger was for those who seem to forget their oath of office is to the citizens of this country to maintain and protect our rights. They would rather placate the president out of fear.
The Founding Fathers faced hanging as traitors. What do these elected officials fear? Not to be reelected.
My fear comes from Donald Trump wanting to end our democracy and create a dictatorship. The actions he claims are for our good are actually hurting us. He seems to think that executive power is superior to the other branches. If he actually read the Constitution he swore an oath to, he would find out that Congress and the judiciary have equal power and a right to protest and deny his actions.
My fear is that he is turning back the clock and more of our rights will be eliminated to the extent that we will not be celebrating 250 years of democracy next year.
And for the record, the Justice Department had the right to investigate what led up to the insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, 2021. It was the most disgraceful act in our history, and Trump did break his oath of office. I spoke with a retired Army major and asked why an order of arrest was not issued for Trump for Jan. 6. He replied: “They didn’t know what to do because it never happened before.”
We Americans are just as strong and courageous as the Founding Fathers. We must stand up for our rights and not allow Trump to put our economy in danger and cause more businesses to close and unemployment to rise. We cannot allow him to start a war.
We cannot keep allowing him to either cut or eliminate government departments, which hurt veterans, those with disabilities, the elderly, the poor and working-class families. We cannot allow our cowardly Republican Congress to continue to rubber-stamp whatever he asks for.
My only hope is that, peacefully and legally, we drive this man from office, accompanied by his lapdog Vice President JD Vance.
— Judy Arkes, Chicago
Parade is a costly insult
Do we really need a Russian-style military parade?
The Army is set to hold a grand military parade on June 14 to commemorate its 250th anniversary. June 14 is also President Donald Trump’s birthday, and many are anticipating based on past history that this event may morph into a homage to our current president.
The parade will include more than 6,600 soldiers, 150 military vehicles, 50 helicopters and performances from seven military bands. Army officials have not disclosed the total cost for the celebration, but estimates range from $25 million to $45 million. This is not supposed to happen in a democracy. This is what dictators do, and we do not need further evidence of Trump’s ambitions to use the military for his own benefit.
The GOP in the House approved billions in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, while granting a huge tax cut to multimillionaires. Perhaps instead of spending those millions on a parade, that money would be better spent on food for the hungry, medical research or assistance for the thousands of federal workers Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency so callously fired on the pretense of cutting fraud and abuse.
— Vivian Lenski, Huntley
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