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Hey, Congress: Care is What Really Matters

Deliberate Distractions Must Not Derail Our Efforts to Protect Health Coverage for Millions of People

Jackalope Labbe
October 29, 2025

Every week brings a new wave of confusion regarding health care from the Trump administration. One day, it’s HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. making unfounded claims about over-the-counter painkillers and autism. The next, it’s open skepticism about childhood vaccination schedules. At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services touts that most people don’t need regular care. The chaos this creates serves a purpose. It is meant to dominate attention and drown out the real story.

Jackalope Labbe

While everyone argues about medical conspiracies, some lawmakers in Congress have worked to dismantle and defund major parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). When public focus is fixed on fringe controversies, it becomes easier for lawmakers to push through such a devastating policy change. While the media churns out headline after headline on the newest baseless claims coming from members of the current administration, Congress is preparing to let the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits expire.

The ACA’s premium tax credit lowered the cost of health care for millions of people by capping how much we pay for coverage on the ACA marketplace based on our income, making premiums either free or affordable for millions of low- and middle-income families. It is the only way millions of people in the U.S. can afford health care. Without this, insurance companies are surging their rates, leaving us with more expensive, less effective health care.

Since being introduced, the ACA premium tax credits have transformed access to health care in our country. Enrollment in ACA marketplace coverage hit record highs in early 2025, driving the uninsured rate to its lowest level ever. Today, more than 24 million people rely on these tax credits to afford their insurance. An estimated 4.8 million people will lose their health coverage entirely because they can no longer afford it without the premium tax credits.

These aren’t abstract numbers. They represent parents choosing between rent and insulin, young adults aging out of their parents’ plan with nowhere to turn, and rural hospitals forced to close their doors as patient numbers drop.

As frustrating as this political theater feels, anger alone won’t change minds. Our community members echoing misinformation about vaccines or Medicaid aren’t doing so out of hostility. They’re scared. Years of rising costs, confusing bureaucracy, and inaccessible care have left so many feeling alienated. When leaders exploit that fear, it breeds mistrust, making people more vulnerable to conspiracy theories that tell us the system was never meant to help anyway.

If we respond with outrage, we alienate those who could join with us. Empathy does not mean agreeing with misinformation; it means understanding the concerns that fuel it. When we center conversations around shared experiences, we remind each other that health care is a universal issue. Compassion is not weakness; it’s a strategy for rebuilding community.

Much of the misinformation flooding social media targets one of the most vulnerable emotions in the country, a mother’s fear. False claims about medications during pregnancy or routine childhood vaccines being dangerous are designed to strike where the instinct to protect intersects with trust in science. These stories circulate because they sound caring, reframing misinformation as maternal caution rather than political manipulation. This strategy is deliberate.

When fear takes hold, it erodes trust in the healthcare systems families depend on. Instead of feeling supported by doctors and public health agencies, parents feel suspicious of them. This cycle of fear doesn’t just isolate families; it weakens collective confidence in public health, making it easier for lawmakers to justify cuts to the programs that keep those same families healthy.

This government shutdown is not just another budget debate; it’s a turning point. The distractions, conspiracy theories, culture wars, and partisan gridlock are meant to make us forget where we need to focus: keeping health care accessible. This means protecting the ACA, including premium tax credits.

Every phone call to a representative, every conversation educating each other, every show of solidarity helps. The Trump administration may count on division and fatigue, but we can choose to stay centered on what matters. We cannot fall to distrust in uncertain times. We must strive for clarity. While some government officials try to use confusion to take away our care, we can refocus our attention to saving it.

Jackalope Labbe is a social work and history major at College of Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee, MA and a Sr. Carol Coston Fellow in NETWORK’s Young Advocates Leadership Lab (Y.A.L.L).

Hispanic Heritage Means Resilience Against Injustice

Policies of Exclusion Inflict Lasting Mental and Physical Harm on Hispanic Communities

Taylor Demby
October 14, 2025

For Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), NETWORK’s Sr. Carol Coston Fellows share their thoughts on the importance of this observance in the U.S. This reflection comes from University of the Incarnate Word student Taylor Demby.

Taylor Demby

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate the richness, resilience, and many contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities across the United States. This month is especially personal to me as a San Antonian and as an ally. Having grown up in a city where Hispanic culture shapes nearly every neighborhood, classroom, and workplace, I have experienced firsthand how essential the Hispanic community is to the fabric of our daily life.

Both in and out of September, it is imperative that we take a moment to honor this cultural legacy that continues to influence every corner of American life. As we honor heritage and achievement, we cannot continue to ignore a serious concern: the rising mental health crises deeply affecting Hispanic communities, intensified by the relentless attacks and exclusionary policies that have shaped their lived experiences in this country.

Data from the CDC’s 2023 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicate a troubling trend: suicide rates among Hispanic individuals in the U.S. increased by 10 percent between 2018 and 2021, while rates for non-Hispanic White individuals declined over the same period. Behind these numbers lie the experiences of families and neighbors: each one reflecting a real human reality shaped by systemic discrimination, the emotional toll of ongoing injustice, and the daily challenges faced by a community trying to navigate a society that continues to overlook and undermine them.

I work at one of the few outpatient behavioral health facilities in San Antonio that accepts Medicaid. In my work, I encounter both the resilience of and the struggles that Hispanic families face when seeking mental health care. Many caregivers advocate fiercely for their children, yet they face barriers that others rarely encounter. Long waitlists, limited insurance coverage, lack of transportation, unforgiving work schedules, and the stigma surrounding mental health can make accessing care extraordinarily difficult. Their persistence inspires me, but it also emphasizes the urgent need for federal policies that expand Medicaid access, reduce wait times and ensure culturally competent, affordable care for all Hispanic families.

Across the country, families face the compounded effects of systemic inequities, limited access to healthcare, and the stress of navigating anti-immigrant policies. These struggles are widespread yet often hidden, reminding us that celebration alone is not enough. We must pair this recognition with meaningful action to create the change our communities need. To me, honoring Hispanic heritage means taking the time to recognize the full spectrum of experiences that shape communities.

In my home state of Texas, where heavy anti-immigrant sentiment and ultra-exclusionary policies have persisted for generations, these challenges are especially apparent. Students at my own university and across the Bexar County area are not immune to this. In San Antonio, reckless immigration policies and cuts enacted through the recent Budget Reconciliation Bill continue to disproportionately affect Hispanic families, impacting workplaces, classrooms, and homes.

These realities highlight the urgent need for culturally sensitive support, accessible care, and open dialogue about mental health and our healthcare system as a whole. By bringing these issues to the forefront, we can mobilize our communities and work to hold legislators and decision-makers accountable, ensuring that the policies introduced protect and uplift Hispanic families rather than harm them.

Hispanic Heritage Month offers advocates and allies like me a unique opportunity to pair celebration with action. Investing in the health and dignity of Hispanic families builds a stronger, more equitable future for all families, regardless of race or class. The forces driving inequity expand across race and region, hurting working people everywhere, and the solutions we fight for benefit us all.

Honoring Hispanic heritage requires confronting these uncomfortable truths: that within the great stories of strength, resilience, and perseverance live the often-unspoken realities of distress, trauma, and pain associated with inequity. We should do more than remember the past. We must contribute to culturally sensitive dialogue that affirms a principle central to my work as an advocate inspired by Catholic Social Justice teaching: human dignity. Every human being possesses inherent dignity and deserves the support to live fully and authentically, without barriers.

Learn more about NETWORK’s Young Advocates Leadership Lab (Y.A.L.L).