My mother, a 51-year-old service worker, immigrated to the U.S. in 2004 and lives in New York with my father. In August 2025, she received a phone call that no one wants to receive from their doctor — and found out that she has breast cancer.

As a Medicaid enrollee, she didn’t have to add fear about paying for treatment atop the other fears racing through her mind: of missing my family’s milestones or retiring with my father and feeling they had lived the American dream. And thanks to her Medicaid coverage, her cancer was detected early.

Politicians are now toying with her life and the lives of millions of low-income people in the U.S. who rely on Medicaid. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July 2025, extended and deepened expensive tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and imposed new work requirements for Medicaid eligibility that will hinder access to health insurance for millions of........

© NY Daily News