Because as a nurse for 48 years who saw everything imaginable, including the results of gross social injustice, in the emergency department, I'm compelled to speak out against our Republican-led government cutting healthcare access for the many in order to provide lucrative tax cuts for the wealthiest. 

Almost thirty-four years ago, the Star Tribune published my first-hand account of a woman I cared for in the middle of the night who was forced to visit two emergency rooms for treatment of a worsening bladder infection because of her insurer's shortsighted rules. The insurer said yes to the first ER visit at another hospital, but no to the relatively inexpensive antibiotic she needed, and could have received at the first hospital if the hospital pharmacy had been covered by her "plan." But it wasn't, and she was broke, so she left without the antibiotic. When she got sicker, she ended up coming to my publicly-supported ER for better care. Even though she was on a public program (think Medicare and Medicaid/Medical Assistance), healthcare plans like hers received legislative permission to take our tax dollars and use them as they saw fit in providing (or not) access to necessary health care. In my sick patient's case, how the "healthcare plan" saw fit to use our tax dollars was to deny access to inexpensive medication and use much, much, much more expensive ER care instead. ER care that taxpayers funded.