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UNDERSTANDABLE
Dean Olsen’s cover story about the local impact of cuts to Medicaid was excellent – thorough, well-researched, with multiple perspectives (“Losing health care coverage,” Oct. 2). You made a complicated issue easier to understand and provided important information about how this will impact our area. Thanks for your in-depth reporting.
Karen Witter
Springfield
PREVENTABLE
There’s a preventable crisis brewing in Washington, D.C. that could easily be treated if Congress truly wants to support the health and well-being of Americans. The physicians of the Illinois State Medical Society implore Congress to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act marketplace plans.
These subsidies have helped expand health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, including 550,000 of our fellow residents in the state of Illinois. Approximately 90% received the tax credits to help lower the cost of monthly payments. If Congress fails to pass the extension, health care insurance will likely be unaffordable for many of the plans offered through the federal exchange.
ISMS members care about this issue because it immediately impacts our patients, as well as physicians and health care facilities. Without proper health insurance, patients may delay or skip medical care. That means when individuals show up in the emergency department (because that’s where people without health insurance go), they will be sicker. This also puts a burden on physician practices and health care facilities when people do not have health insurance through no fault of their own – we all pay for it.
Congress can fix this potential crisis by extending the tax credits for federal exchange plans before the end of the year. Contact Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Sen. Dick Durbin and your U.S. representative to let them know you support taking care of your neighbor in need of affordable health insurance.
Richard C. Anderson, M.D.
President, Illinois State Medical Society
WE CAN DO MORE
In this moment, too many of our political leaders have a poverty mindset that limits American progress.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to mark the dawn of the Apollo missions. One line in particular has been ringing in my ears: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”
With sustained investment, ingenuity, collaboration and hard work (and computers only as powerful as a pocket calculator), we landed men on the moon less than a decade later. Contrast that drive for progress and national achievement with President Donald Trump’s sweeping disinvestment in government services, humanitarian aid, scientific research and emerging technology. Republicans in Congress and the president, by passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, have sent a message that even maintaining the status quo on things like Medicaid for millions of Americans is too much to expect.
A totally unnecessary and counterproductive poverty mindset is being wielded to convince Americans that progress is out of reach. We’re told universal health care, paid family leave, affordable college tuition, high speed rail and clean energy are simply too costly and too hard. Our leaders cry poor even as the wealthiest Americans and corporations receive deficit-busting tax cuts.
But America remains the wealthiest country in the world, with the ability to make advances that currently seem impossible. This country can achieve amazing things (for everyone, not just the rich). In this moment, we could use a president who inspires and reminds us of what this country is capable of achieving.
Paul Winters
Monticello
This article appears in October 9-15, 2025.
