US President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will cut funding for healthcare by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. The fallout is expected to be grim, with over 17 million people projected to lose health coverage, hospital closures, and around 5 million denied Medicaid because of new work requirements. These drastic cuts were made with relative ease because the US—unlike other industrialized countries—does not recognize healthcare as a human right. It is time to change that.

Health is not a commodity to be bought, traded, or reserved for the privileged. It is a fundamental human right. That idea is not radical. It is affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, which states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.” Yet here we are in 2025, still debating whether people deserve access to basic care.

The consequences of ignoring this right are all around us. Life expectancy in the US has declined, not because we lack the technology or knowledge to save lives, but because we have failed to build systems rooted in equity. We spend more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, yet preventable deaths continue to rise. These are not policy failures—they are moral ones.

In 2024, over 38 million Americans—including children and the elderly—were uninsured. That number is rising as Medicaid coverage shrinks and costs climb. Meanwhile, more than 1 in 4 Americans skipped or delayed medical care last year due to cost. That only stands to get worse. According to the Center for American Progress, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will result in at least 10.5 million people being tossed from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

We can keep patching up the wounded—or we can finally build a society where fewer people get hurt in the first place.

Maternal mortality has soared in recent years, with African-American women dying at nearly three times the rate of white women. Rural hospitals are closing. Mental health needs are surging. The opioid crisis—now driven by fentanyl—continues to devastate communities, with over 82,000 overdose deaths reported in 2024 alone. These are not just data points—they are lives cut short, families........

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