I’m glad my Mom died.

I know that title sounds cruel. I loved my mother. She was sweet, warm, stubborn, and deeply loving. She raised me, Jos, and Joe with faith and hope, persevering until the end of her life. And yet I’ve found myself repeatedly saying something terrible: I’m glad she’s dead.

Not because I didn’t love her- I always will. But because I love her enough to know what this country would have done to her if she’d still been here.

Mommy was diagnosed with early onset dementia around the same time she learned she had stage three breast cancer. For some years leading up to the end of her life, she lived in a nursing home, eventually on the memory care floor. She depended on Medicaid to afford that care, because Medicare didn’t cover long-term stays, and she had no private insurance.

On Friday, the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law that will gut the safety net she depended on. In addition, many people, especially children, the elderly, and the disabled, will lose SNAP benefits, meaning millions will go hungry. If she were alive right now, she would have lost so much: her bed, medication, therapies, and much-needed round-the-clock care.

The law enacts the largest Medicaid cuts in history, slashing over $1 trillion from the program to finance tax breaks. This will especially hurt older, disabled people like my mom. From the Washington Post:

While many seniors rely on Medicare to cover their medical expenses, the federal health insurance program doesn’t cover long-term care. That means many older adults end up turning to Medicaid, the government health insurer for the poor, which covers more than 60 percent of the nation’s nursing home residents. The legislation’s deep cuts to Medicaid could force some nursing homes to shutter or scale back services, making it harder for seniors to find a spot in a facility.

Key provisions also include increasing enrollee cost-sharing and mandating renewal eligibility checks every six months instead of annually, making it easier to lose coverage. Experts have warned that thousands are at risk:

A Yale and University of Pennsylvania study estimated that restricting Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage, the repeal of nursing home staffing regulations, and other adjustments in the bill could result in 51,000 preventable deaths each year across the country, making it a top 10 cause of death in the U.S.

The OBBB will also cause millions to go hungry through major reductions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP):

… [S]ignificant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) could result in 3.2 million people on lower incomes losing access to services like the Thrifty Food Plan.The $285.7 billion in spending reduction over the 2025-2034 period and increased working requirements, among other changes, could lead to 93,000 premature deaths over the next 14 years, according to a research memo from the University of Pennsylvania.

While Mommy didn’t receive SNAP benefits, she always worried over those who went hungry, having been raised by a mother who picked through trash cans for food during The Great Depression. Nana actually left school in the third grade to work as a maid. She recalled to Mom and later to us grandkids, how she had to stand on a stool to wash dishes. Cinnamon brown-skinned, she was a natural redhead with freckles, and due to the lack of nutritious food, she only grew to be 4’10.

Mommy was mixed—Black and White, and adopted by a small yet strong-willed Black woman who claimed her as her own. Nana taught her and us what dignity looks like, even when the world doesn’t offer it.

Mom lived her life in the in-between. In the last years of her life, she didn’t have much, but she always made sure to give love. She needed specialized, full-time care near the end, which required the state to step in where we couldn’t. And Medicaid made that possible.